World Athletics set to tighten transgender rules, lift Russia doping ban

World Athletics is likely to tighten rules around the participation of transgender women in female competition in a charged meeting of its decision-making body on Thursday that should also see the doping ban on Russia lifted.

Administrators behind the leading Olympic sport have taken a different approach from that of swimming which has effectively banned transgender athletes from elite female competition.

Track and field's global body have said its "preferred option" is to tighten the rules surrounding eligibility but that it wants to use limits on testosterone as the key determining factor.

It said its preferred option was to amend 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.

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The proposals will be discussed and put to the vote at the meeting of World Athletics' Council that starts on Tuesday in Monaco, with any decisions published on Thursday.

Intense scrutiny

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

Russia's track and field federation has been barred since 2015 after a damning World Anti-Doping Agency report