Caster Semenya has filed her appeal against the ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in favour of the IAAF, adding that the governing body “will not drug me”.
Semenya’s legal team has submitted an appeal at the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, following the judgement by the CAS that allows the IAAF to implement new female classification regulations.
The new rules effectively takes Semenya out of her main events, the 800m and 1 500m, unless she takes medication that reduces her high levels of testosterone.
Semenya has insisted throughout that she intends to continue fighting the ruling.
“I am a woman and I am a world-class athlete. The IAAF will not drug me or stop me from being who I am,” the 800m Olympic champion said in a statement on Wednesday evening.
The appeal will focus on fundamental human rights.
“The court will be asked to consider whether the IAAF’s requirements for compulsory drug interventions violate essential and widely recognised public policy values, including the prohibition against discrimination, the right to physical integrity, the right to economic freedom, and respect for human dignity,” the statement read.
“The CAS decision condones the IAAF’s requirements for unnecessary and unwanted hormonal drug interventions on female athletes despite the lack of any medical protocols and the uncertain health consequences of such interventions.”
Dorothee Schramm will be leading Semenya’s appeal, added: “The IAAF regulations violate the most fundamental principles of Swiss public policy. In the race for justice, human rights must win over sporting interests.”
— Caster Semenya (@caster800m) May 22, 2019
Semenya’s South African lawyer, Gregory Nott of Norton Rose Fulbright, said: “It is gravely concerning that the IAAF has called on doctors to ‘clarify’ the gender identities of female athletes and justified medical interventions on female athletes as ‘gender-affirming’.
“Such views are based not in modern science or medicine. Instead, they reflect an outdated and deeply flawed socio-cultural stereotype of what it means to be a woman.”
Through the appeal, Semenya hopes to have the entire CAS judgement set aside, which would allow her to compete the world championships in Doha in September.
She will return to the track in the 2
000 metres in a meeting in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil on June 11, and has also entered the 3 000m at the Prefontaine
Classic in Stanford,
California, on June 30.
@ashfakmohamed