IOC president Coventry sets early 2026 target for new Olympic policy on gender eligibility

The IOC set a target Wednesday of early 2026 to detail a new policy on eligibility in female sports that could see transgender athletes excluded from the Olympic Games.

International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry also stressed the Olympic body's statutory belief in access to sport being a human right for all people at grassroots and recreational level.

The two-time Olympic champion swimmer created a working group after taking office in June to review "protecting the female category."

Coventry won an IOC presidential election where most of the seven candidates promised a stronger policy on gender eligibility. Previously, the IOC only offered guidance to the individual sports' governing bodies, who were left to decide on their on rules.

"I am really hopeful that in the next couple of months, and definitely within the first quarter of next year, that we will have a very clear decision and way forward," Coventry said at a news conference after a meeting of the executive board she chairs.

That timetable could see an IOC policy — likely on transgender athletes and athletes with differences on sexual development (DSD) — confirmed at its meeting on the eve of the Milan Cortina Winter Games that open Feb. 6.

The 2028 Summer Games follows in Los Angeles, and U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February, "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," that could stop funding for organizations which let transgender athletes compete in women's and girl's sports.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in July effectively barred transgender women from competitions, telling its national federations in Olympic sports they had an "obligation to comply" with the government order.

World governing bodies in