Mandatory genetic testing in sport not justified, ethical or viable – academics

Mandatory testing of sex chromosomes in sport is neither justified, ethical nor viable, a group of academics say.

Safety and fairness in female sport was one of the most prominent topics at this summer’s Olympic Games, where boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting took gold in the women’s welterweight and featherweight categories respectively.

The International Boxing Association had disqualified the fighters from its World Championships last year for allegedly failing gender eligibility tests, though the governing body failed to provide any concrete evidence in support of this at a press conference during the Games.

The IBA had been stripped of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over governance failures and therefore it was the IOC which ran – and set the entry criteria for – the Olympic boxing competitions in Paris.

During the Games an editorial by a group of scientists in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports (SJMSS) proposed the introduction of sex chromosome testing amid what it described as a “growing concern” over the participation in female sport of athletes with an XY difference of sexual development (XY DSD).

However, another group of experts has now questioned the proposed testing regime in an editorial in the same journal, published on Monday.

The group, which includes Professor Alun Williams from Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport, first of all highlighted the lack of direct evidence demonstrating a performance advantage for athletes with XY DSD.

Secondly, they believe the first editorial’s call for “early” testing at the sub-elite level must include minors if it is to achieve its aim. They say the concerns which led to genetic testing being abandoned