Track and field to be first Olympic event to require DNA tests to prove sex

World Athletics chief say rules will uphold the integrity of women’s sport amid debate over inclusion of trans athletes.

Track and field is set to become the first Olympic sport to require participants in women’s events to undergo DNA testing to prove their biological sex following a decision by World Athletics.

Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, said on Wednesday that track and field’s governing body had agreed to introduce the testing to keep the “absolute focus on the integrity of competition”.

“It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about, and particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it,” Coe told reporters on Tuesday after a two-day meeting of the governing body’s council in Nanjing, China.

“And this, we feel, is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”

Coe, a former Olympic medal-winning middle-distance runner, said the body had made the decision following an “exhaustive review” and consultations with more than 70 sporting and advocacy groups.

“Overwhelmingly, the view has come back that this is absolutely the way to go,” Coe said.

Coe, who earlier this month mounted an unsuccessful bid to lead the International Olympic Committee, said competitors would be subject to non-invasive cheek swabs and dry blood-spot tests and would only be checked once in their career.

“We will doggedly protect the female category and we will do whatever is necessary to do it, and we’re not just talking about it,” he said.

The decision is the latest turn in the heated debate over the participation of transgender women and gender non-conforming athletes in women’s sport.

World Athletics in 2023 announced a ban on transgender women who had gone through male puberty, pending a review into the eligibility requirements for participants in female competition.

The move overturned previous rules that allowed transgender women to compete if they maintained a blood testosterone level of no more than 5nmol/L for the preceding 12 months.

While broadly aimed at athletes who have changed their gender, World Athletics’s testing requirements would also affect small numbers of competitors who were born with atypical sex chromosomes.

World Athletics’s decision also comes on the heels of similar moves by several major sporting bodies, including World Aquatics and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the main governing body for college sport in the United States.