IOC closes door on Global South athletes

“For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how African women or women in the Global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm,” Caster Semenya.

The truth will always matter even if no one is ready to hear it yet. Some truths are too large to be spoken out loud, but recorded truth survives in ways buried truth never can. In the last week two things occurred that have a thread. The origin of both decisions has the same root cause.

Semenya, a two-time Olympic 800-metres champion, says the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) reinstatement of gender verification tests for the 2028 Los Angeles Games is “a disrespect for women”.

The hyperandrogenic athlete expressed her disappointment that the measure was taken under new IOC President Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.

Semenya has become the symbol of the struggle of hyperandrogenic athletes, a battle on the athletics tracks and then in courtrooms, to assert her rights, which she has waged since her first world title in the 800m in 2009.

In 2025, she won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.

Quite frankly, it’s a decision that was always on the cards. The IOC’s next Olympic Games are in Los Angeles.

The new policy removes a potential source of conflict between the IOC and United States President Donald Trump as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics come onto the horizon.

Trump issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sport soon after he returned to office in January 2025. The US president took credit for the IOC’s new policy in a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday.

“Congratulations to the International Olympic Committee on their decision to ban men from women’s sports,” Trump said. “This is only happening because of my powerful executive order, standing up for women and girls!”

Anyone who understands the history of the IOC must confront the recorded and buried truth. Semenya said it while articulating her disappointment given that Coventry is from Africa and a woman. But Semenya failed to grasp that the interest is the heteronormative construct of femininity that goes back to colonialist patriarchy that shaped slavery and the anti-black construct of Europe. The second is a landmark decision by the United Nations General Assembly.

On March 25, 2026, the UN General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution (A/80/L48), led by Ghana and backed by the African Union and CARICOM, declaring the transatlantic slave trade and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans the “gravest crime against humanity”. The resolution, passed with 123 votes in favour, calls for reparations for historical wrongs.

Resolution: “Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialised Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity”.

It condemns the trade as an enduring injustice, calling for reparations, formal apologies, restitution of stolen artefacts, and education.

Voting Breakdown: 123 in favour, 3 against (USA, Israel, and Argentina), and 52 abstentions (including the UK and EU members).

The initiative aims to address the lasting legacy of slavery and promote justice.

While not legally binding, the resolution seeks to set a foundation for reparations and formal recognition of the brutal nature of the transatlantic slave trade. Source: United Nations.

Opponents, including the US, expressed concerns over the legal implications of reparations and the ranking of crimes.

But here is the thing: the countries that voted against or abstained play important roles in the global sport ecosystem. Here is what matters. The IOC decision is not a surprise.

Editor’s note: The views expressed in the preceding article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of any organisation in which he is a stakeholder.