Professor of Exercise Physiology, Ross Tucker has voiced his frustration following the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision (CAS) on Caster Semenya.
On Wednesday Semenya and Athletics South Africa (ASA) lost their challenge at the CAS which ruled that middle distance female athletes with a high natural level of testosterone must take medication to reduce it.
CAS ruled regulations are necessary for athletes with differences in sexual development to ensure fair competition.
Tucker says there was a lack of scientific evidence to make the ruling.
“The evidence was totally lacking to the point of being fatally flawed. There were studies done trying to look at whether high testosterone levels give athletes a performance advantage and those studies were compromised by bad study design. This include the way that they analysed the data and the conclusions that they drew.”
‘The concept behind it is quite good but in the absence of scientific evidence, you can not start prescribing people medicines that have harmful side effects.”
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