International Olympic Committee announcement today! Will it be regarding female sports?

[Helleofabore]

The IOC is making an announcement today. Here is the Youtube link for the live stream.

15.15 UK time. Let's hope it is the speculated announcement that they have decided to exclude any male person who has undergone androgenisation at puberty.

https://t.co/rm06rZDB0u

From his most recent video, I think he is fairly equivocal that he thinks it’s fair for those with CAIS to be included in the female category with his caveats being….so long as they are correctly identified. My take on his position, from this video alone, is that he thinks there is room to get the PAIS v CAIS categorisation wrong, which could result in unfairly including those with PAIS and, in his words, unfairly exclude those with CAIS.

It might be the case that he has spoken elsewhere about potential unfair advantage of CAIS, but that wasn’t evident here.

I have been listening to and reading his work now for years, as well as Dr Emma Hilton’s work who he also refers to. I have not formed the opinion I mentioned in my post just from one video.

I believe in the CAIS video he also refers to the expectation that further research focus might find those athletes are excluded in the future doesn’t he? I will see if the transcript is up.

At 12.45 on this video Ross Tucker says (and this is paraphrasing because I am on my phone) ‘in the future it might be discovered that athletes with CAIS have male development with advantage, and that is a bridge we cross if we get there’.

Even so, both he and Emma Hilton have said that there may be a time when these athletes will be excluded in the past even though they both agree with the group’s inclusion now.

Thank you.

I’ve followed/ read Emma Hilton but not Ross Tucker - it’s helpful to note that he agrees with EH. Do they disagree on any points?

I think they adopt a balanced perspective that puts fairness, safety and integrity at the centre of decision making - not ideology.

I don’t think I have come across an issue they disagree on. I usually check both and they both tend to agree even if they have not discussed it together.

I think it comes from the perspective, as Ross says of first setting down the principle of protecting female sports and then working from there. It keeps the perspective. So then when you add Jon Pike’s work and others (for example Carole Hooven, David Handelsman), it builds a coherent position as you say, putting fairness, safety and integrity as the central point.

More from the BBC

IOC: The key question for sport after biological female decision - BBC Sport

I think that's a fair article, and it was good to see Lynsey Sharp being quoted, with a link to the interview she did with Sky News last year.

This is a good reminder.

RE: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF 5ARD FROM THE CAS FINDING IN SEMENYA'S CASE

This is an interesting quote Ross Tucker has clipped from the CAS finding.

The text lifted from the photo says:
Because they are "biologically indistinguishable.. in all relevant respects". athletes with 5-ARD experience the same ergogenic effect from these physiological changes as males without DSD experience. The only material physical difference between 5-ARD athletes and male athletes without DSD is "the size and shape of their external genitals", which has no impact on athletic performance.-*

*While no 5-ARD athlete has yet won a women's event by a margin of 10-12%, this fact has nothing to do with their condition. Rather, it reflects the fact that, "the particular [5-ARD] athletes we have seen thus far are not as good as the best males. Like many other (non-elite) males, they still beat the very best biological females, just by a smaller margin."

https://x.com/scienceofsport/status/1722006033491513584?s=46&t=HTxp6zC_d4GZ2FFv4a-YeQ

His tweet says:
“It's interesting that this came up in the CAS hearing, too. World Athletics had kind of tap danced and skirted around it in the Chand case, but when Semenya played this card at CAS, World Athletics responded, and point 289 of the CAS decision captures the conclusion:”

Lynsey Sharp who received death threats after doing no more than raising an eyebrow and expressing disappointment with the impact on her career of males in her race. There should be a special medal for people like her.

Semenya set a national record in Rio for the women’s 800m with a time of 1:55.28.

The men’s qualifying time for the event was 1:46.00. The top three men ran sub 1:43.00.

Semenya would be little more than a good male club runner without his ‘female’ claim.

ETA: spag

The English school boys’ national records for 800m are as follows:

Junior (13-14 yrs): 1:56.00

Intermediate (15-16 yrs): 1:50.93

Senior (17-18 yrs): 1:48.60

Peak adult Semenya would be good middle school boy at best.

Well we all know if he was good enough to win against the men then he would.

Is the sponsorship deals for men not better than for women?

I still can't believe its 10 years and 2 Olympics since 3 men won the medals in the lady's 800m and its only now the IOC are doing anything about it.
It feels like the last Olympics they put it onto the sports governing bodies - who didn't make a very good job of it - were they scared to actually come out and say "Sorry guys, your not female, do you want a paralimpic event"

Isn't it just a matter of the IOC belatedly showing a bit of back-bone?

How much of it was the left over influence of those in the IOC who allowed activists to convince them to make the changes in the first place ? How much is it was saving face that the IOC not only allowed the 2016 800m result to happen, but had been applauding themselves for their progressiveness since the 1990s?

I reckon there was a great deal of pressure to save face for the situation that, if they really were the experts they wanted the public to believe, they should never have allowed to happen. They should have learned from the testosterone doping issue which probably started this whole entire mess.

After all, people asked valid questions about those women who had developed some male body cues but were tested for sex so it was known they were female. Those valid questions had been dismissed as hate for non-conforming women. That must have then given a group of activists pause for thought, what about these other ‘women’ who are targeted for having male body cues and who out perform other ‘women’? They then developed the human rights argument that led to the decision.

The entry for my sport (cycling) is incorrect. It states "TWO TIER POLICY lawful for elite competition; unlawful for lower levels of competition and recreational". In fact the policy applies at all levels of competition, not just at elite level. They are correct in stating it does not apply for non-competitive activities.

Maybe drop them an email and point that out?

Good idea - will do.

That BBC report was interesting, but each point was introduced with the non female side of things, before saying,

But women's campaigners say XYZ on the matter. They also accepted Mr. Semanya's false claim that he's a woman.

Sex Matters has released this discussion with Emma Hilton and Fiona McAnena discussing the changes.

I found this article in the Telegraph, published 26th March

https://archive.ph/F6Iad

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2026/03/26/ioc-change-protects-only-elite-what-about-rest-of-us/

I don't recall seeing it previously in the thread but apologies if it's already been posted and I overlooked it.

Sharron hits the nail on the head

For far too long, fairness has been disposable for women. Since the IOC took sex screening away in the 1990s, it has taken more than 25 years just to return to the point of common sense. Issues affecting men’s sport, such as shark skin swimsuits or Paralympians wanting to compete at the Olympics, were resolved within months – not a quarter of a century. We have had a decade of allowing people to self-identify, of basing rules on feelings rather than science.

I'm concerned too about the 'been through male puberty' loophole. It seems it's there so athletes with CAIS or similar can still compete but I'm concerned it'll be leveraged to allow puberty blocked males at some time in the future. I'd be astonished if one of these poor boys could ever become a world class athlete but there are sports that don't require strength or stamina.