Track bans transgender athletes; tightens rules for Semenya

By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer

Track and field has banned transgender athletes from international competition while adopting new regulations that could keep Caster Semenya and other athletes with differences in sex development from competing. The World Athletics council adopted the same rules as swimming did last year in deciding to bar athletes who have transitioned from male to female and have gone through male puberty. No such athletes currently compete at the highest elite levels of track. World Athletics president Seb Coe said the updates for athletes with differences in sex development, such as Semenya, will now have to undergo hormone-suppressing treatment for six months before competing to be eligible for events outside of the previously restricted range of 400 meters to a mile.