Athletics South Africa Will Challenge Testosterone Rules

Athletics South Africa (ASA) is going to challenge the new set of rules, known as the testosterone regulations, passed by the IAAF last week.

ASA said in a statement released on Thursday:

"As a member federation, we will engage the IAAF as our mother body and if they do not change their minds on this new rule after this engagement, we will proceed to CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) for further assistance on the matter."

This is after a lot of South Africans and the world criticized the IAAF's moves. It was seen as an attack on South African athlete Caster Semenya, who will be directly affected by these new regulations.

South Africa's law professor Steve Cornelius resigned from the international athletics body's disciplinary tribunal, saying he could not in "good conscience continue to associate myself with an organization which insists on ostracizing certain individuals, all of them female, for no reason other than being what they were born to be."

The new regulations will come into effect on November 1. The IAAF, under the new rules, requires any athlete who has a "Difference of Sexual Development (DSD)," meaning an athlete who is "androgen-sensitive" with levels of testosterone are 5 nmol/L or above to meet the following criteria to be eligible to compete in "restricted events" in an international competition:

a) she must be recognized at law either as female or as intersex (or equivalent)
b) she must reduce her blood testosterone level to below 5 nmol/L for a continuous period of at least six months
c) thereafter she must maintain her blood testosterone level below 5 nmol/L continuously for so long as she wished to remain eligible."