IOC chief Kirsty Coventry calls for protecting…
The new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kirsty Coventry, addressed the subject of transgender athletes competing in girls’s sports activities at her first official information convention since taking over on Thursday, and mentioned that there’s “overwhelming support” by IOC members to shield the feminine class.
“We understand that there’ll be differences depending on the sport … but it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost to ensure fairness,” Coventry mentioned.
“But we need to do that with a scientific approach and the inclusion of the international federations who have already done a lot of work in this area.”
The new president added that there’s “unanimous” help for coming to an settlement about how to amend the coverage, and instructed the IOC could take inspiration from the World Athletics coverage, which restricts organic males from competing in girls’s sports activities if those males have gone through male puberty.
“It was very clear from the membership the discussion around this has to be done with medical and scientific research at the core, so we are looking at the facts and the nuances and the inclusion of the international federations that have done so much of this work … having a seat at table and sharing with us because every sport is different,” she mentioned.
Newly elected President of the International Olympic Committee Kirsty Coventry speaks at a assembly at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland on June 25, 2025. REUTERS
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif stands in the ring after defeating Italy’s Angela Carini in the ladies’s 66kg preliminary boxing match during the Paris Olympics on Aug. 1, 2024. AP
“But it was pretty much unanimously felt that the IOC should take a leading role in bringing everyone together to try and find a broad consensus.”
However, Coventry also mentioned any modifications probably wouldn’t end result in retroactively altering the outcomes of previous competitions that featured athletes with gender-eligibility questions. The 2024 Paris Olympics featured two boxers profitable gold in girls’s competitors, despite beforehand failing gender-eligibility exams for worldwide competitions.
“We’re not going to be doing anything retrospectively. We’re going to be looking forward. From the members [it] was ‘What are we learning from the past, and how are we going to leverage that and move that forward to the future?’” Coventry mentioned.
Last yr, the United Nations launched research findings that say almost 900 organic females have fallen short of the rostrum because they’ve been overwhelmed out by transgender athletes.
The LA28 and IOC government boards attend a press convention for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games at the LA Convention Center in Los Angeles on June 5, 2025. AFP via Getty Images
The research, titled “Violence against women and girls in sports,” mentioned that more than 600 athletes didn’t medal in more than 400 competitions in 29 totally different sports activities, totaling over 890 medals, according to info obtained up to March 30.
“The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report mentioned.
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