Bob Costas, the legendary sportscaster who served as the prime-time host of 12 Olympic Games for NBC Sports from 1988 to 2016, is standing firmly behind the International Olympic Committee’s new eligibility rules for women’s events.
According to sources, the 74-year-old television icon made his position clear during a recent appearance on CNN, calling the IOC’s updated policy nothing more than “common sense” and pushing back against critics who have characterized the new framework as discriminatory.
The IOC announced the policy earlier this week, confirming that eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games, covering both individual and team sports, will be restricted to biological females. The rules are set to take effect for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Athletes with a Disorder of Sex Development (DSD), a group of rare conditions in which a person’s hormones, genes, and reproductive organs may reflect a mix of male and female characteristics, will also largely be barred from women’s events.
An exception has been carved out for those with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), a condition that prevents the body from responding to male hormones and means those athletes have not undergone male puberty.
Eligibility will be determined through a one-time SRY gene screening, conducted via cheek swab or blood test, a process already required by governing bodies including World Athletics and World Boxing.
Not everyone has welcomed the changes. Double Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya, who has a DSD condition and has long been at the center of eligibility disputes, dismissed the new rules as “nonsense.” The South African middle-distance runner views the policy as yet another blow to athletes in her position.
Costas, however, sees the matter differently. He argued that the separation of male and female athletic competition is rooted in biological reality, not prejudice.
“Common sense is not transphobic,” he said during his CNN appearance. “There’s a reason why the high school champions don’t compete with the college champions. There is a reason why no trans man who was once a woman and has become a man has ever competed successfully with men in the Olympics.”
He then offered an analogy to drive the point home. “If Caitlin Clark could play in the NBA, everybody would applaud it – that would be an incredible thing. But if the last guy on the bench of an NBA team went to the WNBA and started averaging 40 points, everyone would know that is BS.”
Costas also addressed the political dimension of the debate, acknowledging that some voices are exploiting the issue for partisan purposes while “demonizing” transgender athletes. He was careful, though, to separate that behavior from the IOC’s intentions.
“There is a reason why there are men’s and women’s sports and why Title IX was one of the truly progressive pieces of legislation in the best sense of the word progressive under the Nixon administration. It changed everything,” he said.
He also pointed to a specific case that drew widespread attention in recent years, referencing a University of Pennsylvania swimmer who, after transitioning, went from being ranked 472nd in men’s competition to contending at the top of women’s events.
“It doesn’t make any sense to have a swimmer who was the 472nd-ranked swimmer when he was a man at Penn either winning or coming close to winning against women a year and a half after transitioning. If that’s what the person wants to do, that person should be treated with dignity and respect. But there ought to be common sense, and common sense is not transphobic.”
The IOC’s decision was shaped in part by the controversy that surrounded the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Chinese Taipei won gold medals in women’s events despite having previously failed gender eligibility tests administered by the International Boxing Association. The episode intensified calls for the IOC to establish clearer, science-based guidelines before the next Games.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry, a former competitive swimmer who made the issue a central part of her presidential campaign, oversaw the review process that produced the new policy. A 10-page IOC document outlined the scientific basis for the decision, explaining that being born male confers physical advantages that persist well beyond any subsequent hormonal or medical transition.
“Males experience three significant testosterone peaks: in utero, in mini-puberty of infancy and beginning in adolescent puberty through adulthood,” the document stated, noting that these translate into “individual sex-based performance advantages in sports and events that rely on strength, power and/or endurance.”
Coventry was direct in her defense of the framework. “As a former athlete, I passionately believe in the rights of all Olympians to take part in fair competition. The policy that we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts,” she said. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
She also emphasized the importance of handling the process with care and respect. “Every athlete must be treated with dignity and respect, and athletes will need to be screened only once in their lifetime. There must be clear education around the process and counselling available, alongside expert medical advice.”
