Two-time Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya has made the surprising decision to end her seven-year legal battle against track and field’s sex eligibility rules despite achieving what appeared to be a breakthrough victory just months ago.
The South African middle-distance runner’s lawyer, Patrick Bracher, confirmed Thursday that they would not pursue further appeals to the Swiss supreme court, effectively closing a chapter on one of sports’ most closely watched cases.
“Caster’s legal challenge reached the highest possible court with a highly successful outcome and will not be taken further in the circumstances,”
Bracher stated in an email to The Associated Press.
The decision comes as a surprise to many observers who expected Semenya to continue her legal pursuit following a favorable ruling from the European Court of Human Rights in July. That court had determined she hadn’t received a fair hearing at the Swiss Federal Tribunal and that complex arguments in her case hadn’t been properly considered, seemingly opening a path forward for renewed challenges.
Since 2019, Semenya has been barred from competing in her signature 800-meter event at major international competitions including the Olympics and world championships. The ban stems from her refusal to comply with World Athletics regulations requiring her to take medication to artificially suppress her naturally occurring testosterone levels.
The 34-year-old athlete, who was once the world’s dominant force in middle-distance running and went unbeaten in more than 30 consecutive races, has a condition known as differences in sex development (DSD). She possesses the typical male XY chromosome pattern while also having female physical traits and elevated levels of naturally produced testosterone. Despite frequent misconceptions, Semenya is not transgender—she was identified as female at birth, raised as a girl and has always identified as female.
World Athletics maintains that athletes like Semenya, who have testosterone levels in the male range, gain an unfair competitive advantage over other women due to the hormone’s impact on muscle mass and cardiovascular performance. However, the extent of any advantage remains a subject of scientific debate and has been one of the complex elements central to Semenya’s landmark case.
The regulatory landscape has evolved significantly since Semenya first burst onto the international scene. Track and field introduced its initial rules governing women with high natural testosterone in 2011, largely seen as a direct response to her emergence as a dominant force after winning the world championships as a teenager in 2009. Those regulations have grown increasingly restrictive over the years.
The most recent rule change, implemented earlier this year, represents a major shift away from testosterone monitoring. Instead, women competing in international track must now undergo genetic testing to check for the presence of a Y chromosome. Those who fail this one-time genetic sex eligibility test face permanent exclusion from female competitions. The new regulations took effect September 1 ahead of last month’s world championships.
Bracher noted that the current rules differ substantially from those Semenya originally challenged when she began her legal journey seven years ago. However, he suggested that her recent victory at the European Court of Human Rights might provide a foundation for other athletes to challenge the current regulations.
Throughout nearly two decades, Semenya’s case transformed track and field into the primary battleground for debates over sex eligibility in sports. Her situation has often been viewed as setting precedent for other sports to introduce their own restrictions, with swimming among the high-profile sports that have moved to exclude women with DSD conditions from competition.
Her case has also influenced ongoing controversies in other sports, including boxing, where Imane Khelif of Algeria—who won gold at the Paris Olympics—has followed Semenya’s path by appealing new genetic sex testing requirements at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
