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Human rights experts raise concerns over Olympics transgender women athlete ban | International Olympic Committee
Over 100 human rights, sports and scientific groups, including the United Nations, have criticised the International Olympic Committee’s new gender eligibility guidelines as “a blunt and discriminatory response that is not supported by science and violates international human rights law”.
The IOC’s new guidelines, announced on Friday, mandate genetic sex tests for all athletes competing in its women’s categories, as well as blanket bans of people who identify as transgender, intersex or with sex differences.
Athletes in these categories have been allowed to compete in Olympic events since the IOC scrapped mandatory sex testing in 1999, which was deemed arbitrary, inaccurate, expensive and discriminatory.
New IOC president Kirsty Coventry reversed the organisation’s position and backflipped on its own 2021 Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination, a policy informed by extensive consultation and research which recognised the need for evidence-based, sport-specific and rights-respecting rules.
“Mandatory genetic sex testing and rigid biological criteria as a condition for participation in the women’s category violates fundamental and universal human rights … including the right to equality, non-discrimination, dignity, privacy, and bodily autonomy,” said Professor Paula Gerber, an international human rights lawyer at Monash University.
“As several UN independent experts have noted, binary definitions of sex reinforce harmful stereotypes and erode progress toward substantive gender equality. Any testing of athletes needs to be individualised and evidence-based, not arbitrary or degrading.”
The new guidelines were developed by a committee which has not publicly shared the scientific data that the IOC claims informed their position. In a press conference on Friday, Coventry claimed all women athletes will be tested for the SRY gene, which multiple medical experts have stated is unreliable and reductive.
“The IOC’s move to mandate sex testing across the female category risks undermining both evidence-based policy and athlete wellbeing, while diverting attention from the real priorities in women’s sport,” said Dr Ada Cheung, a professor of endocrinology at the University of Melbourne.
“The best available data … shows that transgender women receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy are not meaningfully different from cisgender women in key performance-related measures such as muscle mass, strength, body composition, or cardiorespiratory fitness, and in many aspects have a disadvantage.
“This represents a return to practices that were abandoned decades ago for good reason.”
Of the tens of thousands of athletes who have participated in Olympic events since 1999, just one has identified as a transgender woman – Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand. She did not place in her event.
Athletes who are intersex or have differences of sex development, including cisgender women, will be overly affected by the new guidelines, with women of colour likely to be disproportionately targeted due to their appearance.
The guidelines do not affect community sport, but national governing bodies could follow the IOC’s lead in implementing similar tests and bans at grassroots level.
“This isn’t just about transgender or intersex athletes; this impacts every girl playing Australian sport today,” said Nikki Dryden, a human rights lawyer and former Olympic swimmer. “If these rules are adopted, it could mean that when you sign your daughter up to play sport, she may be subjected to sex testing just to participate.
“Worse, it creates a culture where someone like a coach, an official, or even another parent, feels entitled to question whether your daughter ‘looks female enough’ to belong. That is not protecting women’s sport. That is policing girls’ bodies. And once sport starts deciding which women are ‘acceptable’, no woman or girl is truly safe.
“The IOC’s new guidelines will be unlawful in Australia. Mandatory sex testing and blanket bans directly conflict with the Sex Discrimination Act, our sporting National Integrity Framework, and our safeguarding obligations to children.
“Moving towards exclusionary, invasive rules is not only unnecessary, it is a step back over 25 years that exposes athletes and organisations to serious legal and integrity risks.”
Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman said he supported the new guidelines, and offered affected athletes counselling and support.
“Without doubt, this is a challenging and complex subject and at the AOC we approach it with empathy and understanding,” Chesterman said.
“This decision provides clarity for elite female athletes who compete at the highest level and demonstrates a commitment to fairness, safety and integrity in Olympic competition, all of which are fundamental principles of the Olympic movement.”
Australia’s chef de mission for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, Anna Meares, said she commended the IOC for “taking the lead” on the issue.
“The IOC ruling today protects female athletes at the highest level of competition, ensuring it remains safe and fair,” said Meares. “I also know the pain this decision will cause some athletes and I empathise with them.
“This is about integrity on the Olympic field of play. Female athletes know that when they compete it will be fair, it will be safe.”
The AOC said it will now take some time to work with the IOC and member sports to fully understand the workings of the new policy.
UK News
Seven years since Emiliano Sala's death, what has changed for the 'wild west' of football transfers?
The Argentine striker’s 2019 death in a plane crash shone a light on the opaque world of transfers and player welfare.
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Rachel Reeves to tell G7 accelerating shift to clean energy is best defence against energy price shocks | Renewable energy
Rachel Reeves will warn G7 nations they must move faster on clean energy to insulate economies against global price shocks from oil and gas as she and the energy secretary Ed Miliband meet G7 finance and energy ministers on Monday.
Keir Starmer will also gather major energy industry and insurance figures to thrash out what emergency measures might be needed to contain the continuing crisis from the blockade of the strait of Hormuz.
But in an explicit rebuke of the Conservatives and Reform, who have urged her to end the ban on new oil and gas licenses, Reeves will tell her fellow ministers that long-term energy security from renewables and nuclear is the only way to prevent future crises.
“As we move faster on renewables and nuclear, our partners in the G7 must do the same – because staying stuck on the rollercoaster of global oil and gas prices will help nobody,” Reeves told the Guardian ahead of the meeting.
“That transition is strongest when countries act together. By working across the G7 we can accelerate investment and build momentum. Energy bills are coming down for families this week thanks to the actions of this Labour government – action that was opposed by the Tories and Reform.”
Treasury sources said Reeves would speak about accelerating investment in renewables and nuclear to transition away from gas power, as well as the UK’s intention to implement the Fingleton review this year to speed up the delivery of new nuclear.
They said Reeves would argue that the G7 nations should not “shift pressure on to partners or weaken collective resilience” – a veiled warning about easing sanctions on Russian energy or on new trade barriers.
Reeves said she rejected calls from the Conservatives to issue new oil and gas licences in the North Sea because they would not insulate the UK from further energy shocks or bring down UK consumers’ bills.
“Kemi Badenoch has admitted the central foundation of her energy plan won’t bring bills down. The only lasting route to lower bills is clean, homegrown power that cuts our exposure to the volatility of global gas markets,” she said. “While the Tories and Reform chase headlines, this Labour government will remain focused on easing the cost of living for families across Britain.”
Starmer will convene senior leaders from Shell, BP, Centrica and Equinor in No 10 on Monday, as well as insurance giants Lloyd’s of London and shipping firms Maersk and CMA and banks including HSBC and Goldman Sachs.
No 10 said it was intended to be a constructive meeting about the perilous state of the strait. It is likely to inform short and long-term contingency planning amid threats from Iran that it intends to assert sovereignty over the strait of Hormuz, including potentially charging vessels for access once the chokepoint is eventually reopened.
Badenoch will ramp up calls for the government to do more to tackle a hit to energy bills, including removing VAT from bills alongside more drilling in the North Sea. She will visit Aberdeen and an oil rig in the North Sea. She will demand the scrapping of GB Energy, heat pump subsidies and abolishing the renewable obligation subsidies currently being funded through general taxation.
“By drilling in the North Sea and scrapping Ed Miliband’s crazy green taxes, our Cheap Power Plan would reduce bills by £200 for everyone,” she will say. “Only the Conservatives have the plans and the team to deliver cheap energy, a stronger economy and a stronger country.”
Badenoch conceded on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme on Monday that drilling further would not reduce British consumers’ energy bills. “The drilling isn’t going to go directly on to people’s bills, no,” she said. “But if we can make sure that we stop importing from Norway – 40% of our imports are coming from Norway, who are drilling in the same basin. Why are we importing gas that is being drilled in that basin, but we won’t drill our own? This is a wider thing. It goes beyond bills.”
UK News
Igor Tudor leaves Tottenham after just seven games in charge
Tudor was a left-field gamble that went wrong from the start.
His unique selling point, in an appointment that smacked of panic from Tottenham’s hierarchy, was that he had a chequered coaching career but a record of having the sort of instant impact the club required.
This never materialised. He became the first man in charge of Spurs to lose his first four matches, starting with that heavy 4-1 home defeat by Arsenal.
Tudor’s brusque, plain speaking style got no more out of the Spurs squad than Frank’s more empathetic approach. It never made any connection with the Spurs players, while a welter of tactical shifts hinted that he was struggling to work out how to get the best out of the shambles he had inherited.
The low point came in the Champions League last 16 first leg at Atletico Madrid where he gambled on selecting Antonin Kinsky in goal ahead of first-choice Guglielmo Vicario, only to remove the young Czech after just 17 minutes following two catastrophic errors that left Spurs 3-0 down in an eventual 5-2 defeat.
Tudor was also criticised for the manner in which he ignored Kinsky when he went off, comfort being left to his colleagues on the pitch, as well as Conor Gallagher and Dominic Solanke, who followed him down the tunnel to console him.
Improvement could be detected in the deserved draw at Liverpool before an honourable win in the Champions League exit to Atletico – but normal dismal service was resumed in last Sunday’s highly-damaging 3-0 home defeat by fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest.
In Tudor’s defence, he took over a shell-shocked and struggling squad decimated by injuries and stripped of confidence. There is no guarantee anyone else would have done markedly better.
In this emergency situation, Spurs had to act, but the whole episode reflects more badly on those at the top of the club than it does on Tudor.
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