Caster Semenya Reacts To Losing CAS Appeal! A Swiss federal tribunal announced that CAS’ decision cannot be opposed. This meant that Caster Semenya lost her long battle against the World Athletics. After a long battle, hormone reducing measures will be imposed on athletes like Caster Semenya.
“Based on these findings, the CAS decision cannot be challenged,” the tribunal said. “Fairness in sport is a legitimate concern and forms a central principle of sporting competition. It is one of the pillars on which competition is based.”
The World Athletics released a statement in which they said they are “very pleased”
“World Athletics has always maintained that its regulations are lawful and legitimate, and that they represent fair, necessary and proportionate means of ensuring the rights of all female athletes to participate on fair and equal terms,” the organisation said.
“It has rejected the suggestion that they infringe any athlete’s human rights, including the right to dignity and the right to bodily integrity.”
To which Caster Semenya accused World Athletics of being on the “wrong side of history”
“I am very disappointed by this ruling, but refuse to let World Athletics drug me or stop me from being who I am,” the Olympic gold medallist said.
“Excluding female athletes or endangering our health solely because of our natural abilities puts World Athletics on the wrong side of history. I will continue to fight for the human rights of female athletes, both on the track and off the track, until we can all run free the way we were born.
This insinuates that Caster intends on appealing the ruling again. The Swiss tribunal mentioned that the case can the further taken to the European court of human rights.
The tribunal were quite frank in their statement, mentioning that such an appeal is unlikely to succeed.
“The European Court of Human Rights also attaches particular importance to the aspect of fair competition,” the tribunal said in their statement. In addition to this significant public interest, the CAS rightly considered the other relevant interests, namely the private interests of female athletes running in the ‘women’ category,”
