PARIS – World Athletics (WA) is likely to tighten rules around the participation of transgender women at a charged meeting of its decision-making body on Thursday that should also see the doping ban on Russia lifted.

Administrators at the leading Olympic sport have taken a different approach from that of swimming, which has effectively banned all transgender athletes from elite female competition.

Track and field’s global body has said its “preferred option” is to tighten the rules surrounding eligibility and that it wants to use limits on testosterone as the key determining factor.

In that regard, it is aiming to amend the regulations covering both transgender athletes and those classified as DSD, in other words having “differences of sexual development”.

The most high-profile DSD athlete is twice Olympic 800m winner and three-time world champion Caster Semenya of South Africa.

Under the WA proposals, in order to compete in the female category, transgender and DSD athletes would have to reduce their amount of blood testosterone from the current maximum of five nanomoles per litre to below 2.5, and remain below this level for two years rather than just one, as is the case now.

“In terms of our female eligibility regulations, we will follow the science, and more than a decade of research we have in the DSD area, in order to protect the female category, maintain fairness in our competitions and remain as inclusive as possible,” a recent statement read.

“In reviewing a number of new and existing studies and observations from the field, we put forward a preferred option for consultation with our member federations. 

“The option we took to consultation was to amend both the transgender and DSD female eligibility regulations to provide for a continuous reduction of serum testosterone level below 2.5 nmol/L for at least 24 months.”

The proposals will be discussed and put to the vote at the meeting of WA’s Council that started on Tuesday in Monaco, with any decision published on Thursday.

Another major proposal is that concerning Russian athletes, coming at the moment where global sporting bodies are debating their potential reintegration ahead of the Paris Olympics.

Russia’s track and field federation has been barred since 2015 after a damning World Anti-Doping Agency report identified “a deeply-rooted culture of doping”. It is not eligible to host WA events or send teams to international championships.

For the athletics superpower to return, it has to meet a series of strict conditions, including establishing a culture of zero tolerance and an effective anti-doping structure.

Just a handful of Russian athletes took part in track and field at the Tokyo Olympics, and they did so under a neutral flag.

A lifting of sanctions over the doping issue would have little immediate effect, however, as all Russian and Belarusian athletes have been banned from competition “for the foreseeable future” since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That includes the option of competing as a neutral.

But just 16 months before the 2024 Olympics, athletics’ point of view on potential Russian participation will come under increased scrutiny.

There seems to be a groundswell towards allowing the return of Russians and Belarusians under a neutral flag, and the Olympic sport of fencing earlier in March decided to allow athletes from those two countries to take part in qualifying events, sparking outrage in Ukraine.

The ongoing women’s World Boxing Championships in India also featured fighters from both Russia and Belarus competing under their national flags. That led to a boycott by countries including the United States, Ukraine, Canada, Sweden and Britain.

WA president Sebastian Coe has been unequivocal in his previous declarations on the fallout from the Ukraine invasion, saying his organisation would not budge while Kyiv remained under attack. AFP