Semenya To Run In Doha Diamond League

Olympic champion Caster Semenya, who lost her legal challenge against new IAAF gender rules, will race in the 800 metres in Friday’s Doha Diamond League after making a late entry, organisers said Thursday.

Semenya, the double Olympic champion, was added to the start list for Friday’s 800 metres on Thursday morning, a day after her appeal against the IAAF’s rule regulating testosterone levels for women athletes was rejected by the Court for Arbitration of Sport.

Doha organisers said the South African runner had waited for the outcome of Wednesday’s CAS hearing in Lausanne, Switzerland, before deciding whether to run in the meeting that opens the Diamond League season.

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Semenya had challenged measures approved by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), that will force women with higher than normal male hormone levels — so-called “hyperandrogenic” athletes — to artificially lower the amount of testosterone if they are to continue competing.

The rules will come into effect on May 8 and will apply to races over distances of 400m to the mile.

The two other athletes who made the 800m podium at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Burundian Francine Niyonsaba and Margaret Wambui of Kenya, also considered hyperandrogenic, will also start in Doha Friday.