Australian athletics boss Jane Flemming supports DNA tests for athletes
Jane Flemming, president of Australian Athletics, has supported an international move to “protect the female category” in sport, requesting the DNA test of athletes in competition.
Flemming echoed the feelings of the head of world athletics Sebastian Coe, who this week announced the moves to use non -invasive cheeks and dry blood tests to determine the biological genre. Coe also promised to “stubbornly protect” the female category, adding that it would do “whatever it serves”.
Jane Flemming, president of Athletics Australia.Credit: Joe Weapon
Trans women had already been prohibited by competing in elite level athletics, but the addition of DNA tests will extend that prohibition to “difference in the development of sex” (DSD), such as the Olympic boxers Image Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu -ing -Chinese Taipei, who won both gold medals in Paris in 2024.
Flemming admitted that it was “a rather complex problem”, but that Australian athletics was governed by world athletics, “obviously, we will do whatever the rules are”.
He also observed that these tests are not new – and he is even familiar to her from experience. Flemming was tested in the same way in the late 1980s and the early 90s, when he was a golden girl of Australian athletics, competing at the two Olympics and winning the gold medals of the Commonwealth games in the Eptathlon and in the long jump.
“What probably many people don’t know, and I certainly do it, is that in 1988, when I went to my first Olympic games (in Soul), I had to make a buccal strip – what they are suggesting, which is the inside of the cheek – and we were released a” female certificate “. So everything happened in the past.”
Flemming has returned even further back in the history of athletics to demonstrate the point, noting the case of Stella Walsh (born Stefania Walaswicz), who won a gold medal in the 100 meters at the 1932 games in Los Angeles, but later it was found very found to have a chromosomal disorder that would probably see her now designated as Incersex.
“So this was something that challenged sport for years, years and years,” said Flemming. “I absolutely think that the female category, personally, should be protected.
