Camille Naredo

U.S. President Donald Trump receives the FIFA Peace Prize during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on December 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. Dan Mullan, Getty Images/AFP/File

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 05: U.S. President Donald Trump receives the FIFA Peace Prize during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on December 05, 2025 in Washington, DC.   Dan Mullan/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Dan Mullan / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

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FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1774675230278AFP__20251205__2250173482__v1__HighRes__FifaWorldCup2026OfficialDraw.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="U.S. President Donald Trump receives the FIFA Peace Prize during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on December 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. Dan Mullan, Getty Images/AFP/File" width="960"/>U.S. President Donald Trump receives the FIFA Peace Prize during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on December 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. Dan Mullan, Getty Images/AFP/File</div>The International Olympic Committee&#x27;s new policy on gender testing could be seen as &quot;smart positioning&quot; given the current US political climate but a former IOC marketing executive has told AFP he did not believe it was the &quot;driving factor&quot;.The IOC on Thursday announced the re-introduction of gender testing to determine eligibility to compete in women&#x27;s events, an issue which caused a furor in boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.They say only &quot;biological females&quot; can compete in women&#x27;s events.<div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/sports/othersports/2026/3/27/olympic-women-s-sport-to-be-limited-to-biological-females-0830">READ: Olympic women&#x27;s sport to be limited to &#x27;biological females&#x27;</a></div>The decision was welcomed by US President Donald Trump, who last year issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women&#x27;s sport.The next Summer Games are in Los Angeles in 2028.&quot;With the current US political climate, a cynic might say that removing this pressure point before 2028 was smart positioning,&quot; said former IOC executive Terrence Burns.&quot;But I don&#x27;t think that was the driving factor.&quot;The IOC decision comes just over a year after Kirsty Coventry became the first woman to be elected IOC president, succeeding Thomas Bach.Whereas Bach brought in a policy in 2021 that left individual federations to decide their own regulations, the IOC is now introducing a blanket policy across all Olympic sports.Coventry had made resolving the thorny issue a priority after the 2024 Paris Games were rocked by a gender row involving women boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Taiwan&#x27;s Lin Yu-ting.<div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/sports/othersports/2025/9/6/boxing-chiefs-vow-to-learn-lessons-after-world-championships-sex-test-row-1629">READ: Boxing chiefs vow to learn lessons after world championships sex test row</a></div>Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association&#x27;s 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests.However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games, saying they had been victims of &quot;a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA&quot;.Both boxers went on to win gold medals.While Burns said the IOC had &quot;drawn a line under&quot; the issue with the new policy, his fellow former IOC marketing executive Michael Payne told AFP that Coventry had &quot;moved actively and decisively&quot;.&quot;There was mounting pressure to protect the principle of female sports competition,&quot; he said.&quot;For all the honourable reasons about human rights, (that) everyone&#x27;s right to compete no matter their biological make-up, you could not disenfranchise 99.99 percent of the population to address an issue of 0.01 percent.&quot;<div> </div><div>- &#x27;Reputational drag&#x27; -</div><div><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I1nIqmEGwYo?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe> </div>The reintroduction of the testing for the SRY gene was not music to the ears of the scientist who discovered it, Andrew Sinclair.He said ahead of the IOC announcement that the idea that the biological sex be entirely defined by chromosomes is &quot;overly simplistic&quot;.Sinclair was among the experts who persuaded the IOC to drop the tests before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and he said &quot;it is therefore extremely surprising years later there is an ill-advised move to reintroduce it.&quot;&quot;Sinclair&#x27;s scepticism is real and any legal challenge will use it,&quot; said Burns.&quot;But governing bodies rarely have perfect science, they have the best available tools and a decision that can&#x27;t wait.&quot;The IOC&#x27;s honest answer is that precautionary governance under uncertainty is still governance.&quot;Doing nothing wasn&#x27;t an option.&quot;Payne, whose self-deprecatory warts-and-all book &quot;Fast Tracks and Dark Deals&quot; about his time at the IOC under Juan Antonio Samaranch Senior caused a stir last year within the movement, is not sure how much weight Sinclair&#x27;s views will carry.&quot;Is there a single subject where all scientists can agree on the same solution?&quot; said the 68-year-old Irishman.&quot;The science and circumstances, and public opinion evolve.&quot;Both Burns and Payne believe there will be legal challenges, with Payne saying it is &quot;the nature of the society we live in today&quot; but he added that &quot;sport has to be governed by rules&quot;.&quot;The IOC sets the rules, albeit guided by some of the best science available,&quot; said Payne.Burns, who since leaving the IOC has been a pivotal figure in five successful Olympic bid city campaigns, says the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is well used to such cases.&quot;The IOC&#x27;s best protection is a clean governance record, policy grounded in competitive fairness, applied consistently, documented thoroughly.&quot; he said.&quot;Human rights arguments will be made, but courts have generally respected sporting body jurisdiction when the process is defensible.&quot;For Burns, &quot;the bigger risk isn&#x27;t losing in court&quot;.&quot;It&#x27;s the reputational drag of fighting cases through an Olympic cycle,&quot; he said.

The International Olympic Committee's new policy on gender testing could be seen as "smart positioning" given the current US political climate but a former IOC marketing executive has told AFP he did not believe it was the "driving factor".

The International Olympic Committee's new policy on gender testing could be seen as "smart positioning" given the current US political climate but a former IOC marketing executive has told AFP he did not believe it was the "driving factor".

More to IOC gender testing than appeasing Trump: ex-IOC executive

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More to IOC gender testing than appeasing Trump: ex-IOC executive

Pirate Irwin,

Agence France-Presse

Published March 28, 2026 01:32 PM PHT

Read More:

International Olympic Committee

IOC

gender testing

transgender athletes

Donald Trump

Imane Khelif

Lin Yu-ting

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