Gender testing on tap for female skiers, snowboarders with 100 days to Olympics

NEW YORK (AP) – With 100 days to go until the Winter Olympics, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has begun the complicated and expensive task of identifying female skiers and snowboarders who need to take gender tests before they arrive in Italy.

The sport’s international federation adopted a rule last month requiring athletes who want to compete in women’s events to take what’s called an SRY gene test, which identifies the Y chromosome found in males. It’s the same test that track and boxing federations adopted earlier in the year.

The USOPC’s chief medical officer, Jonathan Finnoff, said Tuesday the experience in getting athletes from those sports tested in a short window will make this project run more smoothly.

“Our role in that was helping identify labs and options for the athletes to be able to get that testing,” Finnoff said. “Based on that experience and knowing some other international federations would be following suit, figuring out how to make this a seamless process” was the USOPC’s mission.

The tests cost around $250 each. World Athletics helped offset some of the expense. FIS has not revealed whether it will help with the cost.

Though only a few dozen skiers and snowboarders will qualify for the U.S. team, the number of tests needed could reach into the hundreds, as athletes in all disciplines covered by skiing and snowboarding traverse the globe over the next several weeks for FIS-sanctioned events that will play a role in determining who makes the Olympic team.

The FIS rule comes on the heels of the USOPC’s quiet revision of its own policy involving gender in sports.

In July, the USOPC effectively barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, telling its national governing bodies they had an obligation to comply with the executive order issued by President Donald Trump called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

Board chair Gene Sykes said “fortunately, the executive order that’s designed to protect women’s sports in the United States is very consistent with the trend internationally.”

“Most of the international sports federations are moving in this direction,” Sykes said.

While the individual sports are in charge of creating their own policies, the new president of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry, has signaled the IOC wants to take a stronger position on the topic.

The IOC has formed a working group to look into the topic; Coventry has been consistent in her support of a policy much like what’s in place at FIS and World Athletics.

Asked if the USOPC should play a larger role in shaping the policy, Sykes said “you have to be careful with that.”

“Respecting the government’s decision, that’s the responsible thing to do,” he said. “We can’t pre-judge how the IOC will come down on this. But we have a responsibility to help our NGBs comply with the executive order. That’s what we’re trying to do.”