IOC president sets early 2026 target for new Olympic policy on gender eligibility

Olympic rings are seen near the village of Anterselva where the biathlon discipline will take place during the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, in northern Italy, Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)

GENEVA — The IOC set a target Wednesday of early 2026 to detail a new policy on eligibility in female sports that could see transgender athletes excluded from the Olympic Games.

International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry also stressed the Olympic body’s statutory belief in access to sport being a human right for all people at grassroots and recreational level.

The two-time Olympic champion swimmer created a working group after taking office in June to review “protecting the female category.”

Coventry won an IOC presidential election where most of the seven candidates promised a stronger policy on gender eligibility. Previously, the IOC only offered guidance to the individual sports’ governing bodies, who were left to decide on their on rules.

“I am really hopeful that in the next couple of months, and definitely within the first quarter of next year, that we will have a very clear decision and way forward,” Coventry said at a news conference after a meeting of the executive board she chairs.

That timetable could see an IOC policy — likely on transgender athletes and athletes with differences on sexual development (DSD) — confirmed at its meeting on the eve of the Milan Cortina Winter Games that open Feb. 6.

The 2028 Summer Games follows in Los Angeles, and U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that could stop funding for organizations which let transgender athletes compete in women’s and girl’s sports.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in July effectively barred transgender women from competitions, telling its national federations in Olympic sports they had an “obligation to comply” with the government order.

World governing bodies in top-tier Olympic sports track and field and swimming had already banned athletes who went through male puberty from their women’s events ahead of the Paris Olympics.

In Paris 16 months ago, a furor was created around women’s boxing and the eligibility of two gold medalists, Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

World Boxing, the new body overseeing Olympic tournaments, has introduced the SRY gene test, which identifies the Y chromosome found in males. World Athletics and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation also have introduced the tests.

Coventry said Wednesday trying to find a consensus is “maybe not going to be the easiest thing to do.”

“But we are going to try our best to ensure that when we are talking about the female category, we are protecting the female category and we are doing that in the most fair way,” she said.

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender athletes are competing at an Olympic level of competition.

However, the Olympic Charter which codifies rules for the IOC and Olympic Games states: “The practice of sport is a human right ... without discrimination of any kind in respect of internationally recognized human rights.”

“That stance is never going to change,” Coventry said Wednesday. “Sport is, at grassroot levels and in any form of recreation, for everybody and you should have access for everybody to partake.”

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AP National Writer Eddie Pells in Denver contributed to this report

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AP Winter Olympics at https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press