September 22 2025 - 10:00am
Nine years ago, Scottish runner Lynsey Sharp came sixth in the women’s 800m Olympic final in Rio. Canada’s Melissa Bishop-Nriagu finished fourth and Poland’s Joanna Jóźwik fifth. Interviewed by the BBC, Sharp chose her words carefully, saying she had “tried to avoid the issue all year,” that it was “out of our control,” and that she was relying “on people at the top sorting it out.” For this, she was utterly vilified.
What did Sharp have against Caster Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba and Margaret Nyairera Wambui, the runners who took gold, silver and bronze? On social media, Sharp was branded, at best, a sore loser, at worst, a bigot shedding white tears because three black women had beaten three white ones. The backlash was swift and brutal.
Yet the controversy was not about race but about biology. Sharp, Bishop and Jóźwik were competing against “hyperandrogenic athletes” with naturally high testosterone levels — though what that meant was far from clear at the time. Like many, I assumed this referred to disorders of sex development (DSDs) that caused elevated testosterone in females. Only later did I learn it meant something more radical: the medalists in the women’s 800m were, biologically, male.
Almost a decade later the “people at the top” are clarifying the situation. As the Guardian reports, according to a senior World Athletics official “between 50 and 60 athletes who went through male puberty have been finalists in the female category in global and continental track and field championships since 2000”. There is evidence of vast over-representation of athletes who were identified as female at birth but have a 46 XY karyotype with male testes. This is why the introduction of cheek swab sex testing matters. For the past 25 years, exceptional female athletes have been excluded from finals and podiums because unexceptional males took their places.
It is important to frame the introduction of sex testing as a movement for, not against, inclusion. While the situation of athletes with DSDs competing as women is not identical to that of trans-identified males doing the same, there are some similarities. In the case of both, a great deal of attention is paid to how bad those who can no longer compete will feel once sex testing is introduced. There is comparatively little handwringing over the gross injustice female athletes have faced; not only denied places, prizes and potentially life-changing sponsorship, but shamed and ridiculed whenever they dared to complain.
Caster Semenya is not a cheat in the way that someone like Laurel Hubbard, a late-transitioning male who took a women’s Olympic weightlifting spot, might be described as one. Even so, Semenya has displayed zero empathy towards female athletes whose careers have been unjustly hobbled. In a 2024 autobiography, Semenya chose to repeat the “sore loser” line with reference to Sharp. Never is there any acknowledgement that, had they been running against others of their sex, the three winners in Rio would never have ranked near the women behind them.
One can have sympathy for Semenya, but women should not have to sacrifice their own dreams just because other people’s lives are complex. Sex testing has come too late for Sharp, who has since retired, confessing that what happened in Rio tainted her experience of the sport. There is no way of compensating her and countless others. Even awarding a medal years later can’t change the course of a life that was initially denied it. Athletes have short careers, limited chances, a brief window in which to shine. Once your moment has gone, it doesn’t come again.
Sex testing is a step in the right direction. The next step should be to redirect the empathy spotlight toward the women who lost out. We can’t repay them, but we can ensure it never happens again.
