World Athletics set to tighten DSD, transgender rules

World Athletics is likely to tighten rules governing the participation of transgender women in female competition on Thursday after a meeting that is also expected to decide to lift the ban imposed on Russia for mass doping.

Track and field, the leading Olympic sport, has chosen a different path from that of swimming which has effectively banned transgender athletes from elite female competition.

World Athletics has said its "preferred option" is to tighten the rules surrounding eligibility but that testosterone levels should be the key determining factor.

It has proposed amending the regulations covering both transgender athletes and those classified as DSD, in other words having "differences of sexual development".

The most high-profile DSD athlete is double Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya of South Africa.

Under the World Athletics proposals, in order to compete in the female category, transgender and DSD athletes would have to reduce their amount of blood testosterone from the current maximum of five nanomoles per litre to below 2.5, and remain below this level for two years rather than just one, as is the case now.

The proposals have been mulled over at a meeting of the World Athletics Council that started on Tuesday in Monaco.

Another major proposal is that concerning Russian athletes, coming at a time when global sporting bodies are debating their potential reintegration ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Russia's athletics federation has been barred since 2015 after a damning World Anti-Doping Agency report identified "a deeply-rooted culture of doping". It is not eligible to host World Athletics events or send teams to international championships.

For the athletics superpower to return it has to meet a series of