Dutee Chand-IAAF case to be terminated?

CHENNAI:It looks like Dutee Chand’s case against the IAAF will be over soon. If word out of the body’s two-day Council meeting that took place in Birmingham earlier this week is to be taken at face value, the sprinter’s years-old dispute with the world governing body for athletics has reached its endgame.

“Based on the evidence collected, (the IAAF) Council approved a request to revise the competition regulations for track events whose distances range from 400 metres up to and including one mile,” a press release from the IAAF noted. “Following some further drafting, the regulations will be communicated to Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) before being released. It is anticipated that the regulations to go into effect on 1 November 2018.”

This essentially translates to one thing. Chand is free to race again (as early as next month’s Commonwealth Games if she qualifies) without being questioned on her natural physiology vis-a-vis higher levels of testosterone due to body’s own processes. That much was confirmed by Dr Katrina Karkazis, one of the 16 witnesses who gave oral evidence with respect to the case at CAS in 2015. “Yes, they (IAAF) will limit it (new regulations) to only certain events... 400m to 1500m (400m, 400m hurdles, 800m and so on), so Dutee’s case is over,” she told Express.

The proceedings in the case between Chand and IAAF will stand terminated the moment the IAAF goes to CAS with its proposed draft regulations. This was made clear in a January 18, 2018, ruling by CAS. In its statement, CAS gave the IAAF six months “to advise the CAS as to how it intends to implement its regulation (regarding hyperandrogenism) moving forward.” This came with a rider.

“If the IAAF decides not to withdraw its current Hyperandrogenism Regulations, then these (case between Chand and the IAAF) proceedings will resume before the same Panel of Arbitrators. If the IAAF withdraws the Hyperandrogenism Regulations and/or replaces them with the proposed draft regulations it has submitted (the IAAF submitted a new draft with respect to the Chand case last September), these proceedings will be terminated.”

That was what happened on March 6 when the IAAF Council sat and approved a request to revise the regulations surrounding hyperandrogenism. “This is one of the toughest subjects my Council and I are discussing,” IAAF president Sebastian Coe was quoted as saying in the same release. “This is not about cheating. No hyperandrogenic athlete has cheated. This is about our responsibility as a sporting federation to ensure a level playing field. It is for us to decide the rules, to draw the lines for competition.”

What happens next? Once the new regulations come into effect on November 1, athletes competing in all categories between 400m and 1500m will be subject to it, until another athlete decides to take on the IAAF. “It (the proposed regulation) is legal until it is challenged in the way the prior regulation was,” Karkazis said. As far as Karkazis, who is currently writing a book titled ‘T: The Unauthorised Biography’ (examining the many identities of testosterone), is concerned, there is no new evidence. “There is no new evidence. There has never been; it’s been political.”

The next chapter in this debate will resume in Gold Coast when, as expected, world champion Caster Semenya — one of the most high profile athletes to have been affected by the IAAF’s existing hyperandrogenism regulations — takes to the track.

swaroop@newindianexpress.com