IAAF comments on interim award issued by the CAS on the IAAF’s hyperandrogenism regulations

Monaco, July 27, 2015: The IAAF has received the CAS’s interim award in the Dutee Chand case, where the validity of the IAAF’s Hyperandrogenism Regulations has been challenged.

Those Regulations were adopted following a lengthy and comprehensive consultation exercise by the IAAF’s Expert Working Group in conjunction with the IOC, involving world-leading experts across various fields, along with numerous other stakeholders.

The Regulations are based on the strong scientific consensus that the clear sex difference in sports performance is mainly due to the marked difference in male and female testosterone levels (normal female range of serum testosterone being approximately 0.1 – 2.8 nmol/L; normal male range, above 10.5 nmol/L). Due to abnormal adrenal or gonadal function, certain females have serum testosterone levels of 10 nmol/L or more. The Regulations aim to preserve fair competition by requiring such athletes either to show that they are androgen-resistant (and so derive no advantage from their elevated levels of testosterone) or else to bring those levels down below 10 nmol/L.

The IAAF is happy to note that the CAS Panel in its interim award specifically found that the IAAF and its experts have ‘acted with conspicuous diligence and good faith’, seeking ‘to create a system of rules that are fair, objective and founded on the best available science’, and that those rules ‘have been administered in confidence and with care and compassion’ (including ensuring that athletes affected have received the medical treatment required to ensure their wellbeing). The CAS Panel said this was ‘a testament to the seriousness with which the IAAF takes its responsibilities as the global regulator of the sport’.

The IAAF is also happy to note the CAS Panel’s ruling that there is a sound scientific basis to the Regulations, in that endogenous testosterone is ‘the best indicator of performance differences between male and female athletes’, and its acceptance that hyperandrogenic female athletes may have a competitive advantage over athletes with testosterone levels in the normal female range.

However, the IAAF also notes the CAS Panel’s view that more evidence is required as to the precise degree of performance advantage that hyperandrogenic female athletes enjoy over athletes with normal testosterone levels, and its directive that the Regulations should be suspended for two years while that evidence is gathered.

The IAAF will now meet as soon as possible with its experts and with the IOC and its experts to discuss how best to address this interim ruling by the CAS. The IAAF will make no further comments on this subject until those discussions are concluded. —- IAAF