Latest news with #WorldAthleticsCouncil
The Hindu
25-04-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
World Athletics cancels Road Running Championships 2025
World Athletics announced on Friday that it had cancelled the 2025 Road Running Championships, a month after it was moved from the initial host city of San Diego. Track and field's governing body said it had 'held discussions with a number of alternative hosts, some with great potential' for the championships that had been scheduled for September 26-28. Following last month's decision to move the 2025 World Road Running Championships from San Diego, the World Athletics Council has opted not to reassign the event due to limited preparation time for elite and mass races. The focus now shifts to the 2026 edition in Copenhagen. — World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) April 25, 2025 'While some of these discussions will continue for other editions of the event, the World Athletics Council has decided not to award the Championships to an alternative host this year due to lack of essential planning and preparation time required to cater for both elite and mass participation race elements,' it said. The next World Road Running Championships will now be held in Copenhagen on September 19-20, 2026. Related Topics World Athletics
New Straits Times
25-04-2025
- Sport
- New Straits Times
World Athletics cancels 2025 road running champs
PARIS: World Athletics announced Friday that it had cancelled the 2025 Road Running Championships, a month after it was moved from the initial host city of San Diego. Track and field's governing body said it had "held discussions with a number of alternative hosts, some with great potential" for the championships that had been scheduled for September 26-28. "While some of these discussions will continue for other editions of the event, the World Athletics Council has decided not to award the Championships to an alternative host this year due to lack of essential planning and preparation time required to cater for both elite and mass participation race elements," it said. The next World Road Running Championships will now be held in Copenhagen on September 19-20, 2026.
CNN
26-03-2025
- Sport
- CNN
World Athletics plans pre-clearance testing of female category track and field athletes
World Athletics plans to introduce biological pre-clearance tests for track and field athletes before they can compete in the female category, the sport's governing body announced Tuesday. These tests will screen athletes' genetic samples to determine whether they contain the SRY gene, or 'a genetic surrogate for a Y chromosome,' according to the organization. The decision comes following a World Athletics Council meeting where the council agreed to adopt multiple recommended conditions of 'eligibility in the female category.' World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the tests will be 'non-invasive' during a Tuesday press conference. 'Cheek swab or dry blood tests,' Coe said. 'It's along the lines of something that will be administered once in the career of an athlete, a female athlete.' Coe said the organization is still looking for a provider to carry out the tests. 'We will doggedly protect the female category, and we'll do whatever is necessary to do it, and we're not just talking about it,' Coe told reporters. 'Preserving the integrity of competition in the female category is a fundamental principle of the sport of athletics,' World Athletics said in a Tuesday press release. The organization added, 'The majority of stakeholders consulted last month on the proposed new eligibility conditions for the female category agreed that allowing only biological female athletes to compete in the female category was essential to maintaining fairness.' Coe reiterated this standpoint during the press conference. 'This we feel is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.' Transgender athletes' participation in women's sport has been a topical subject of late. President Donald Trump took executive action in February to deliver on a political issue central to his 2024 campaign: banning transgender women from competing in women's sports. Trump signed an executive order titled 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports' surrounded by dozens of women and some young girls in athletic uniforms. 'With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over,' the president said. The order is two-pronged, leaning on compliance with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that receive funding from the federal government, as well as federal engagement with the private sector.
CNN
26-03-2025
- Sport
- CNN
World Athletics plans pre-clearance testing of female category track and field athletes
World Athletics plans to introduce biological pre-clearance tests for track and field athletes before they can compete in the female category, the sport's governing body announced Tuesday. These tests will screen athletes' genetic samples to determine whether they contain the SRY gene, or 'a genetic surrogate for a Y chromosome,' according to the organization. The decision comes following a World Athletics Council meeting where the council agreed to adopt multiple recommended conditions of 'eligibility in the female category.' World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the tests will be 'non-invasive' during a Tuesday press conference. 'Cheek swab or dry blood tests,' Coe said. 'It's along the lines of something that will be administered once in the career of an athlete, a female athlete.' Coe said the organization is still looking for a provider to carry out the tests. 'We will doggedly protect the female category, and we'll do whatever is necessary to do it, and we're not just talking about it,' Coe told reporters. 'Preserving the integrity of competition in the female category is a fundamental principle of the sport of athletics,' World Athletics said in a Tuesday press release. The organization added, 'The majority of stakeholders consulted last month on the proposed new eligibility conditions for the female category agreed that allowing only biological female athletes to compete in the female category was essential to maintaining fairness.' Coe reiterated this standpoint during the press conference. 'This we feel is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.' Transgender athletes' participation in women's sport has been a topical subject of late. President Donald Trump took executive action in February to deliver on a political issue central to his 2024 campaign: banning transgender women from competing in women's sports. Trump signed an executive order titled 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports' surrounded by dozens of women and some young girls in athletic uniforms. 'With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over,' the president said. The order is two-pronged, leaning on compliance with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that receive funding from the federal government, as well as federal engagement with the private sector.
NBC News
25-03-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
World Athletics to require chromosome testing of women's track and field athletes
NANJING, China — World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said Tuesday that the track and field's governing body has approved the introduction of cheek swabs and dry blood-spot tests for female athletes in order to maintain 'the integrity of competition.' The planned changes include reinstating a version of chromosome testing that was discontinued in the 1990s, requiring athletes who compete in the female category to submit to a cheek swab or dry blood-spot test for the presence of a gene that indicates whether the athlete has a 'Y' chromosome present in males. Coe told a news conference that athletes will have to take the test just once during their career. 'It's important to do it because it maintains everything that we've been talking about, and particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female women's sport, but actually guaranteeing it,' Coe said after a two-day meeting of the World Athletics Council in Nanjing. 'We feel this is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.' It's unclear whether the tests will be in place before the world championships in September. Coe said that the new regulations will be drafted and that a testing provider will be confirmed over the next few weeks. Coe, the two-time Olympic champion who was unsuccessful last week in his bid to become IOC president, has been vocal about 'protecting the female category' in track and field. He has said the International Olympic Committee needs to take a leadership role in the transgender debate instead of letting each individual sport decide their own regulations. World Athletics, which in 2023 banned transgender athletes who had transitioned male to female and gone through male puberty, announced in February proposed recommendations that would apply strict transgender rules to athletes who were born female but had what the organization describes as naturally occurring testosterone levels in the typical male range. Those recommendations came only days after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring transgender athletes from competing in girls sports in the U.S. and pressured the Olympics to do the same. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Games. Legal challenges Asked whether World Athletics felt the policy would withstand legal challenges, Coe said he was confident after an exhaustive review. 'I would never have set off down this path in 2016-2017 to protect the female category in sport' without being 'prepared to take the challenge head on,' Coe said. He added: 'We've been to the Court of Arbitration on our DSD (differences in sex development) regulations. They have been upheld, and they have again been upheld after appeal. So we will doggedly protect the female category, and we'll do whatever is necessary to do it.'
