http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/8210471.stm

Basically put - young female athlete appears out of nowhere and beats all comers at national level. Goes to the world championships and beats all comers there too. Somehow it is decided that she might not actually be female and that there should be a long, complicated series of tests involving several medical and psychological professionals to establish the facts of the case before her results are either validated or disqualified.

I mean, what? Might not be female? OK, even if you assume that finding out the obvious way would be a gross invasion of her personal privacy, shouldn't a simple genetic analysis do the job? She's female or not depending on whether she has either XX or XY chromosomes. You can get enough cells to do that with a blood sample or swab, which athletes do as part of random drug testing anyway. The idea it requires several qualified doctors and a psychologist to establish what sex someone is just boggles the mind.

Jon

That's debatable.

There are "Women" with XY chromosomes, where the Y is dormant. Are you suggesting they should shower with the men?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_differentiation

I'm suggesting you have a defined standard which is applicable in the vast majority of cases and can be established through a relatively straightforward, non-invasive and objective test. Rather than having some sort of committee spending weeks trying to figure it out, coming to a subjective and potentially challengeable decision and leaving four innocent athletes (I'm going to to assume the athlete in question hasn't engaged in any sort of subterfuge here) not knowing if they've won a medal or not. The medal award ceremony is due to be held tomorrow. What happens if the committee hasn't decided by then?

Jon

She looks like she could pass for either tbh.

In athletics, there are a very high percentage of XY women. Would you ban them all, or make them wear trousers?

It looks like a man

It's a man, baby... yeah!

FFS the girl is only 18 and the IAAF start going on about this 4 hours before the final of her race.

Hell, the only attractive female athletes are always in the Heptathlon does that mean we should test every woman in every other event?

Could you just not pull down her underwear and take a look? I think that would save both money and resources....

But she could have had an op.

It wouldn't be hard for someone to knock up some genetic tests to see if there are the genes involved with rescuing guys from being female. You could start off with SRY and then look for a few other varients in the pathway.

That's kind of what I meant by 'a gross invasion of her personal privacy'.

As to whether any test would have to be widespread or not, well, you can do it either way.

If it was, it would very quickly become acceptable. The problem is currently partly because this particular individual is being singled out and thus, regardless of the result, it's rather embarrassing for them. If every single athlete had the same test performed as a requirement of competition the first time they appeared at an IAAF event, they could be analysed the same way drug tests are and would become just as accepted as drug tests very quickly. I'm sure the first people who had drug tests felt very uncomfortable and felt they were being accused of something even though in fact they weren't.

if it was only ever done at the request of an IAAF official then obviously the fact it's being done should be kept confidential. The problem here is not the fact of the test per se, it's the fact that it's become public knowledge that the test is to take place.

Jon

Exactly. There's no problem with testing her or anyone else they have suspicions about when they make huge increases in their performances.

The problem is with how they handle the process, this has been completely ridiculous.

Thankfully a tired Bolt's 200m WR will take the headlines now.

How long until nasty things are said about Bolt's perfomance?