Double Olympic 800m champion, Caster Semenya, says “justice has spoken” after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in her favour on Tuesday.
Semenya won her appeal against the government of Switzerland for not protecting her rights and dates back to a Swiss Supreme Court ruling in 2020.
In a statement, the 32-year-old South African said the decision “has been a long time coming.”
She added: “I am elated at the outcome of the ruling,”
Semenya was born with differences of sexual development (DSD), and is not allowed to compete in any track events without taking testosterone-reducing drugs.
She has been in a long-running dispute with World Athletics, who require athletes with DSD to have hormone treatment in order to compete in female track events – something Semenya refuses to do.
The three-time 800m world champion has twice failed in legal appeals to overturn the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in 2019 and three years ago in Switzerland.
The ECHR found that the Swiss government failed to defend Semenya from discrimination when its Supreme Court refused to overturn a ruling by CAS, which upheld the World Athletics rules.
Semenya’s statement continued: “I have suffered a lot at the hands of the powers that be and have been treated poorly”. —BBC
