There are 50 to 60 reasons World Athletics restarted genetic testing

Tommy Lundberg gives calm, reasoned answers to the startling news that 50 to 60 males have been finalists in women's elite track and field competitions

The redoubtable Tommy Lundberg, Swedish exercise physiologist who has contributed immeasurably to the science behind sex differences in sports, also contributed immeasurably to the facts—as opposed to the machinations of my over-active feminism—of the presentation at the Track and Field World Championships that 50 to 60 male athletes had been global and continental finalists in the female category since 2000. There’s no doubt, this is an unacceptable number of male athletes in women’s sports, which as Lundberg explained, is likely why World Athletics announced this information concurrently with the roll out of their genetic testing program.

But I extrapolated and got heated up when maybe I shouldn’t have. That’s where Tommy Lundberg came to the rescue. Follows are the email Qs and As that might help you, too, to keep this fresh outrage in perspective.

Tommy Lundberg: I can give you my initial thoughts on your questions. I am probably not able to answer all of them in a good way but I will do what I can.

The Female Category: World Athletics was not doing genetic testing during the time period 2000 to 2023, so how did they identify these DSD athletes? I read something in another article that they were identified through doping control via elevated testosterone levels, but is elevated T a reliable way to identify DSD?

TL: Yes, if you find male testosterone levels in someone who competes in the female category you can expect it to be a DSD condition, even though follow-up tests would be needed to determine the exact condition.

TFC: Why is there “reason to think that the 50-60 found could actually be much higher?”

TL: I’m not sure about that – it might be referring to the fact that at other lower levels and in some countries there might not be frequent testing? But I’m not sure. I haven’t seen this discussed.

TFC: Why are male DSDs well known among scientists but not to the public?

TL: I’m not sure how well known it has been, but it might be that some scientists who have been deeply involved in the issue have insights that the general public doesn’t have. But on a general level (Semenya, etc) it has been known to the public as well. But it might be that the overall frequency has not been known widely simply because media wouldn’t write about it without official confirmation, e.g. the Namibian sprinters – were they officially confirmed to have DSD? I don’t think so).

TFC: When you consider that this number of male people competed in women’s track and field, just in a 20-year period, just in the finals of international events, just in one sport, the number in all sports and at all levels from secondary school to elite is mind boggling.

TL: I think it’s difficult to speculate on this – Athletics certainly appears to be an outlier sport so far. It’s difficult to estimate exactly how common it is in sports.

TFC: Why do you think Athletics is an outlier? Why can’t we assume that other sports like soccer (football) or cycling or swimming have similar numbers of DSD athletes?

TL: My best attempt to answer: I think Athletics is an outlier because DSDs were so prevalent at the top level. If it were the same in many other sports at the highest level, we would have seen it by now. But we shouldn’t forget that 5ARD is a very clustered condition - in many countries it’s virtually non-existent. And many sports are dominated by athletes from countries where the condition is not really present, e.g. swimming and cycling. It could be that cases are more common in these sports at lower levels and in regions where the condition does exist. Certainly there are cases in other sports (cases have been reported in some African soccer teams, e.g. during the Paris Olympics). But at the highest level, athletics still seems to be the primary sport affected. This does not exclude that there are many unknown cases in other sports as well, but in some sports at the top level this seems less likely for the reasons mentioned above. [TFC note: Zambian soccer stars Barbra Banda, Racheal Kundananji, and Racheal Nachula have been found to have “high testosterone” but, according to their American teams, have not failed genetic tests because they have not taken genetic tests. Not confidence boosting]

TFC: Sports officials must have known about this gross violation of women’s sports—why did they do nothing? What could have been done?

TL: If you take Athletics, I think they reasoned that they did do something, e.g. enforced testosterone regulations after the Chand/Semenya cases. It is only during the last years that several sport governing bodies have realized that testosterone regulations don’t solve this issue.

TFC: Why are we just now finding this out through a sort of leak from a closed-door meeting?

TL: I’m just speculating that, from a World Athletics perspective, this is good timing for the public to know because it kind of justifies their new screening protocol that they recently set in place.