World Athletics, the international governing body for athletics, requires all athletes to undergo an SRY test before competing in the female category for all major championships and Diamond League events. The rule is in place to exclude trans women and intersex people from competition. The SRY gene tests are used to detect the presence of the Y chromosome via a cheek swab or blood sample and cost £185.
"Athletes who screen negative for the SRY gene permanently satisfy this policy's eligibility criteria for competition in the female category. Unless there is reason to believe that a negative reading is in error, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime test."
GAA president Jarlath Burns has said a "line was crossed" by protesters against the Association's sponsorship links with Allianz who interrupted Congress on the fifth floor of the Hogan Stand earlier today. The protesters, carrying banners and flags and chanting "Allianz Out", had been part of a rally outside the main entrance to the Hogan Stand, but about 20 breached security and made it up to the Hogan Suite where Congress was taking place.
But there's also the matter of making sure one's equipment is up to snuff - and, beginning with this year's Winter Olympics, that means not having any PFAS, or "forever chemicals," in the mix. What happens if a competitor does turn out to have such chemicals in their equipment? They'll find themselves disqualified. As GearJunkie's Mary Andino reports, three skiiers have been disqualified so far due to their use of fluorocarbon wax, also known as "fluoro wax."
A massive international outcry following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a war that will enter its fifth year two days after the closing ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Games, forced most major international sports bodies to ban all Russian athletes from competition. The IOC has allowed athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete in Italy as individual neutral athletes, which means they cannot compete on teams nor wear their national team colors or flag.
What will be their tune this Wednesday? You've got to hand it to Sport Ireland - they say what they like, and they like what they say. Take the press release three days before Christmas, 'Sport Ireland welcomes 2025 as most successful year ever for Irish high-performance sport', when they rolled out their big hitters for a collective pat on the back.
The sport-adjacent drama has been the real story of this year's Winter Olympics in Milan. Despite RTE's lacklustre Winter Olympics coverage, I have become completely enthralled in it. Not only by the sport but also for all the off-piste, behind-the-scenes, sport-adjacent drama. And by jove, there has been a cornucopia of it this year, from cheating confessions and allegations, to 'penisgate'.
His investigation took listeners deep inside the closed world of Irish rowing, a world where winning medals mattered more than athlete welfare, and where silence was expected, not questioned. And this week, the controversy reached a new level. The chief executive of Rowing Ireland did not attend an Oireachtas committee hearing into the safeguarding of high-performance athletes at the organisation in what was described as an "extraordinary meeting before it ever started".
I think anything that is distracting from these Games is sad, right? But we've learned over the many years ... there's always been something that has taken the lead, leading up to the Games," Coventry said. "Whether it has been Zika, COVID, there has always been something.
