Kenya drops two female runners over testosterone levels
The Kenyan female athletics team has dropped two sprinters over their testosterone levels.
The decision comes after the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling that South African runner Caster Semenya is ineligible to compete in women鈥檚 events unless she submits to hormone therapy.
Now two members of the Kenyan women鈥檚 team have been dropped from the IAAF World Relays in Japan after blood tests showed testosterone higher than usual for cis women, has reported.
100m and 200m champion Maximilla Imali and 400m runner Evangeline Makena will not be able to compete.
鈥淲e could not risk travelling with the two athletes after the recent IAAF ruling on the restriction of testosterone levels on female runners took effect on May 8,” said Athletics Kenya director of competitions Paul Mutwii.
Imali was previously withdrawn from the 2015 world championships in Beijing due to hyperandrogenism.
鈥淲e were summoned for the blood tests at the team hotel last Friday and when the report came out on Monday, Athletics Kenya officials inform us about the result outcome,” Imali said.
“This is a scheme to demoralise us. I am not ready to quit athletics, nor to take a suppressant treatment. I am so happy the way God made me to be.”
Intersex advocates and the World Medical Association have criticised the IAAF鈥檚 decision on hormones, saying that forcing female athletes to take medication in order to compete could contravene human rights and medical ethics.
Morgan Carpenter from Intersex Human Rights Australia said the call was 鈥渘ot what justice looks like鈥�.
鈥淭he decision is more of the same old story: discrimination, forced medical intervention, and decision-making despite a lack of evidence,鈥� he said.
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