Level the playing field! - JAAA president says Jamaican athletes could benefit from testosterone rule

President of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association, Warren Blake, believes that Jamaica's middle-distance athletes could benefit from the new IAAF rule which sets to control the level of testosterone in female athletes.

"It might give us more opportunity of doing well. We see Natoya Goule winning the Bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games and she was beaten by Caster Semenya (athlete with elevated level of testosterone) and someone else who many suspect may be in the same category," Blake said.

However, Blake pointed out that this is not the reason why he supports the rule.

"I don't want to say I am supporting it because we may benefit, but because I think it gives us a more levelled playing field," Blake said.

In a statement released last week, president of the IAAF, Lord Sabastian Coe, said that the rule was implemented to level the playing field in the sport after research proved that there are an increased number of elite female athletes who have elevated levels of testosterone.

"Women with elevated testosterone must reduce their level for "six months (e.g., by use of hormonal contraceptives)" before being eligible to run, and maintain that lowered level," the statement read.

Blake, who is a member of the IAAF's health and science commission, said:

"The experiment has shown that there are really three categories of humans: males, females and intersex. People who fall in the category of intersex appear to be females but they have high level of testosterone. And, they (researchers) have proved that it gives them an unfair advantage because of their elevated level of testosterone."

According to Blake, the ratio of females athletes with elevated levels of testosterone in athletics is 30 times higher than that of the normal population.

"They believe that the numbers also show that these people get an advantage ," Blake said.