My take away is the ass-backwardness of the whole process. IOC methodology appears to be ‘let’s change the rules before we do any actual meaningful in depth scientific studies. We can always change them back if the studies indicate it’s totally fucked up in 15 years time, and we’ll just carefully ignore those who set records and those who lost out on medals’.
And isn’t the Olympic ethos supposed be ‘Faster, higher, stronger’? Surely it’s about striving for the best performance you can personally meet? How does artificially weakening yourself so you can’t realize your actual physical potential not turn that completely on its head? And how does anyone live with knowing they could do so much more if they weren’t hobbling themselves? No you may not win the medals in the men’s competitions but you can honestly say you did everything you could.
We’re being asked to accept the lie that it’s as worthy for TW athletes to deliberately make themselves ‘lesser’ and not do their best as it is for women athletes to be constantly striving to better their best.