Gene Testing Nears Completion for Female Athletes at Track and Field Worlds

TOKYO -- Nearly all female athletes have completed gene testing ahead of the athletics world championships this month in Japan.

World Athletics said Tuesday that more than 95% percent of tests -- a genetic screening to determine the athlete's sex at birth -- have been completed in the lead up to the world championships that will take place in Tokyo beginning this weekend.

The governing body for track and field said the remainder of the tests -- for the French and Norwegian teams and some athletes based in France, both being countries where genetic testing for non-medical reasons is banned -- will be done in Tokyo before the start of the competition.

"This has been a whole sport response to a principle that we all fundamentally believe in, which is to protect the female category," World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said.

World Athletics was the first Olympic sport to reintroduce chromosome testing -- previously discontinued in the 1990s -- which requires athletes who compete in the women's events to submit to the test once in their careers. It announced in March that it approved the introduction of cheek swabs and dry blood-spot tests for female athletes in order to maintain "the integrity of competition."

World Athletics had set a deadline of Sept. 1 for athletes to submit to the gene tests in advance of the world championships.

Last month, the governing body for Olympic-style boxing announced it would require gene testing for all fighters wishing to compete in the women's division at its world championships this month in Liverpool, England.