Semenya vows to fight against IOC's gene-screening policy

March 31 : Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya says she intends to fight against the introduction of gender testing for the female category at the Olympics, a policy the South African insists "undermines women's rights".

The International Olympic Committee unveiled the policy last week and it is expected to become a universal rule for competitors in female elite sports after years of fragmented regulation that led to controversy.

Semenya has been at the centre of one of those controversies due to her long-running legal case against World Athletics over her right to compete on the track despite having a Difference of Sexual Development (DSD).

"We're going to be vocal about it, we're going to make noise until we're heard," the 35-year-old athlete told Reuters from Pretoria on Monday. 

"Now it's a matter of women standing for themselves to say, enough is enough. We are not going to be told how to do things.

"If really we are accepted as women to take part, why does my appearance or my voice, why do my inner parts need to be a problem to take part in the sport?" 

DSDs are a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs. Some people with DSDs are raised as female but have XY sex chromosomes and blood testosterone levels in the male range.

The IOC policy document said including "androgen-sensitive XY-DSD athletes" in the female category in events that rely on strength, power or endurance "runs fundamentally counter to ensuring fairness, safety and integrity in elite competition".

Semenya, who won two Olympic and three world titles in the 800 metres before being limited to shorter events, believes the IOC got the science wrong.

Semenya said "there's no science" that XY-DSD gave an athlete an advantage.