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from the just-testosterone-for-now...-but-in-100-years...? dept.
What exactly makes a woman? Track and field's world governing body thinks the answer has to do with levels of serum testosterone, at least when it comes to female runners competing in middle-distance races.
The International Association of Athletics Federation announced a new set of rules Thursday that will ban women who naturally produce higher-than-normal levels of testosterone from participating in races ranging from 400 meters to the mile, unless they agree to take medication. Athletes with the condition, called hyperandrogenism, would be eligible to compete at the international level only if they reduced blood testosterone levels through the use of hormonal contraceptives, including birth control pills. The rule will go into effect on Nov. 1.
"Our evidence and data show that testosterone, either naturally produced or artificially inserted into the body, provides significant performance advantages in female athletes," said IAAF President Sebastian Coe in a statement. "The revised rules are not about cheating, no athlete with a [difference of sexual development] has cheated, they are about levelling the playing field to ensure fair and meaningful competition in the sport of athletics where success is determined by talent, dedication and hard work rather than other contributing factors," he added.
The new stipulations are stricter than those established by the IAAF in 2011, which limited women's testosterone levels to 10 nanomoles per liter of blood. The new requirements reduce the limit by half to 5 nanomoles per liter. That is still far above levels in most women, including elite female athletes, whose levels range from 0.12 to 1.79 nanomoles per liter, states a 22-page IAAF document [auto-download PDF] defending the organization's decision. Meanwhile, the normal male range after puberty is much higher, from 7.7 to 29.4 nanomoles.
Previously, the Court of Arbitration for Sport struck down the IAAF's hyperandrogenism regulations in response to a challenge by sprinter Dutee Chand.
Related: The Caster Semenya Debate
The Olympics, Science and Intersex
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Saturday April 28 2018, @06:59PM (1 child)
I don't know about boxing, but you have to consider that the best soccer player in the world, Lionel Messi [wikipedia.org] is slender and not too tall (5'7") and you can watch [youtube.com] him drive a formidable Jerome Boateng into the ground.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday April 28 2018, @07:23PM
There are probably a lot of sports where being big, tall and strong might not matter as much. It might even be hindrance (compare say Soccer players to American Football players, the defensive line would never player pro-Soccer). Soccer might be an example, there are benefits to being tall but they might not be all that. Soccer is probably filled with short men, or below average height. Messi is one, Diego Maradona is another and the list can just go on. That said one can probably assume that even short for males if one took a comparable height female the males would still be physically better as in stronger, faster and have more endurance. It's not really sexism, it's just biological fact. There are probably sports where such things doesn't matter, or matters as much, but for most sports it will matter -- since that is really what it's almost all about, a physical contest. But there is still a wide difference between sports. But men for the most parts are just going to be superior by nature.
One could look at the extreme end of it all -- Olympic world records (1). When one compares the male to females, these are then both "the best" in the world of their gender, there is really no competition. When females finish men have already crossed the finish line quite some time before. The only place it looks like women are better or close to men it turns out that they are not really doing the same thing even if it's called the same thing. Shot put and Discus being such things, turns out the female shot and discus only weighs about half as much. Marathon running, when she crosses the line he has already been there for about 17 minutes.
It's not to put women down, I just don't think it would be a very good or interesting competition. Which might also explain why watching women sports on Telly (or live) doesn't draw as big a crowd or viewer numbers. It's after all watching the inferior athletes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_athletics [wikipedia.org]