In a relief for sprinter Dutee Chand, the Court Of Arbitration for Sport today extended the suspension of the International Athletics Federation's contentious policy which bars females with high male hormones from competing.
The order has kept the door open for Chand's participation in the upcoming Commonwealth Games, provided she clears the Athletics Federation of India's (AFI) tough qualifying standards.
The CAS issued an order with the consent of the parties according to which the proceedings of the case before the world's top sport tribunal would be suspended for a period of six months, during which the IAAF's Hyperandrogenism Regulations will remain suspended.
"During this period, the IAAF is to advise the CAS as to how it intends to implement its regulations moving forward. If the IAAF decides not to withdraw its current Hyperandrogenism Regulations, then these proceedings will resume before the same Panel of arbitrators," the CAS said in a statement issued at its headquarters in Lausanne.
"If the IAAF withdraws the Hyperandrogenism Regulations and/or replaces them with the proposed draft regulations it has submitted, then these proceedings will be terminated," the world's top sports tribunal added.
Chand, who was barred from competing in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, had challenged this Hyperandrogenism Regulations, and in July 2015, the CAS in an interim award suspended the policy of the IAAF.
The IAAF was asked to submit further evidence in support of the regulations, in particular as to the actual degree of athletic performance advantage sustained by hyperandrogenic female athletes as compared to nonhyperandrogenic ones by reason of their high levels of testosterone within two years of the date of the interim award.
The CAS had ruled that the Hyperandrogenism Regulations would be declared invalid if the IAAF failed to provide evidence.
In September last year, after being granted an extension to the deadline set out in the interim award, the IAAF filed evidence material with the CAS, including expert reports and legal submissions.
That material included draft revised regulations that would only apply to female track events over distances of between 400 metres and one mile.
In response, Chand submitted, in October last year, among other things that the IAAF had not complied with the interim award as it had filed evidence supporting proposed revised regulations, not the current Hyperandrogenism Regulations and, therefore, the Regulations should be declared invalid.
She also contended that she was not directly affected by the proposed revised regulations of the IAAF as she does not compete now or intend to compete in the future in track races between 400 metres and one mile.
"On 3 November 2017, the CAS Panel advised that it has reflected upon the evidence advanced by the IAAF, and determined that the IAAF's further submission dated 29 September 2017 represented sufficient compliance with the Panel's directive and sought to support the Hyperandrogenism Regulations to the extent set out in the evidence it had filed," the CAS said.
"However, the panel has made no ruling at this stage on the sufficiency of that evidence.
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