Tanya Lee | Semenya, testosterone and sports

This week, the IAAF stepped into tepid waters by issuing new eligibility regulations for female athletes with 'Differences of Sex Differentiation' (DSD). This raises many red flags in relation to gender classification, testosterone, and sport. It's quite a tricky issue, and anyone who tells you this issue is simple has simply not done the research.

The new IAAF regulations require any female athlete whose levels of circulating testosterone (in serum) are five nmol/L or above and who is thus androgen-sensitive, to compete, but with restrictions in specific events.

The events outlined in the new regulations include the 400m, the 400m hurdles, the 800m, the 1500m, one-mile races, and combined events over the same distances.

At the heart of the IAAF's regulation is a belief, via its research findings, that hyperandrogenic athletes with naturally high levels of testosterone have an unfair advantage over other female athletes. The new regulation requires that these athletes take action to suppress their testosterone levels or compete under a different classification.

DISGUISED ATTACK ON SEMENYA

Where it gets tricky for me is that the new regulations, by virtue of the IAAF's narrow focus on specific events, seem highly, and obviously, discriminatory to South Africa's Caster Semenya, the Olympic and World champion over 800m who happens to be hyperandrogenic. My question to the IAAF would be, why such a narrow focus on those events?

It is the exclusivity of the IAAF in addressing a few - rather than all events across female sports - that smacks of a disguised attack on Semenya and which gives credence to the view that there are unethical and discriminatory undertones here. Also, to impose a rule, which requires an athlete to medicate in a bid to suppress that which is natural to them, is policing of the female body. The IAAF has to be careful!

But IAAF regulations aside, I believe we should address the issue of naturally high levels of testosterone in female athletics. This is simply because it presents an unfair advantage, which, essentially, makes a mockery of the sport. It's similar to if you put a heavyweight boxer in a ring with a flyweight boxer and expect the flyweight boxer to come out on top. It's never going to happen. Or if you had no age classification in sports and 17-year-old boys were racing against 12-year-olds at Champs. Classifications help us to level the playing field.

LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD

In the words of the IAAF, "As the international federation for our sport, we have a responsibility to ensure a level playing field for athletes. Our evidence and data show that testosterone, either naturally produced or artificially inserted into the body, provides significant performance advantages in female athletes."

Now, let me start by saying that all athletes have natural advantages in sport. Height, weight, fast-twitch muscles, lung capacity, large hands, et cetera, all play a role in either giving an advantage - or a disadvantage - to athletes. Truth is, however, these advantages are not a single determining factor in whether someone wins.

Comparatively, testosterone is a single determining factor in whether athletes of the same event, training across the same sport, win. There is no other physical composition that accounts for more power and strength among men and women than testosterone. It essentially accounts for why men are stronger, leaner, and more powerful physically, and why we thus separate men and women in sports.

Genetically, boys and girls exhibit similar levels of speed pre-puberty, which is before the testosterone level spikes in boys. It is not until during puberty when boys produce 10-30 times more testosterone than girls that we see the physical separation as the boys become superior in strength and power and become faster.

An example in point is primary-level athletics. An examination of the results at that level shows that the times are comparative between boys and girls. At this year's Gibson Relays, Hydel Prep girls won the 4x100m in 51.95 seconds. The winning boys' team from Sts Peter and Paul Preparatory School won in 51.30 seconds. During, after, and beyond puberty, the male times will be better than the females across all events based on testosterone.

I am of the view that maybe track and field requires another classification. We do it in boxing, where height and weight are the determinants. Given the advantage of the hyperandrogenic female in athletics, I think this issue requires further examination.

One love.

- Tanya Lee is an international sports marketer and author.