GABORONE, Botswana (AFP) — World Athletics (WA) President Sebastian Coe told AFP the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision in March to introduce testing for gender to determine eligibility to compete in the female category, preventing transgender women from competing, is a “very important development for the Olympic movement”.

The screening will mean Olympic women’s sports from the 2028 Los Angeles Games will be limited to biological females, which would also rule out those with differences in sexual development (DSD).

WA had already announced last July they were introducing the SRY gene test.

“You know, I didn’t come into World Athletics for a popularity contest, I came in to do what I think is the right thing,” said Coe ahead of the World Athletics Relays being hosted in Gaborone, Botswana.

“I’m delighted that the world is beginning to see it the way we did, but I think it’s a very important development for the Olympic movement, and I celebrate that.”

The announcement by the IOC of the reintroduction of the testing for the SRY gene did not meet with universal approval, with French Sports Minister Marina Ferrari, saying it was “a step backwards”.

Andrew Sinclair, the scientist who discovered the gene, had said even ahead of the decision that the idea that the biological sex be entirely defined by chromosomes is “overly simplistic”.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who succeeded Thomas Bach last year, had made resolving the thorny issue a priority, after the 2024 Paris Games were rocked by a gender row involving women boxers Imane Khelif if Algeria and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting.

Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) 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 “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”.

Both boxers went on to win gold medals.

Coe praised Coventry for taking the bull by the horns and coming up with a blanket policy to cover all Olympic sports.

“I’m delighted that the new president, Kirsty, has really, in her first few months as president, gone out of her way to protect the female category,” said the 69-year-old Englishman.

“If you don’t, then you don’t have women’s sport — and Kirsty, of all people, is going to protect women’s sport — so we are 100 per cent behind that position at World Athletics, it’s a position we took many years ago.”