Keely Hodgkinson Among British Athletes Asked to Pay £185 for Mandatory Sex Tests

Top British female athletes, including Olympic champion medallist Keely Hodgkinson, have been informed by UK Athletics that they must cover the £185 cost of mandatory sex tests required for international competition.

The policy has reportedly left many athletes "stunned," as the tests are a prerequisite for participating in major championships and Diamond League events.

In 2023, World Athletics introduced a compulsory, once-in-a-lifetime SRY gene test for all female competitors. The measure, conducted via a cheek swab or blood test, aims to ensure fair competition by identifying athletes with Differences of Sex Development (DSD) and transgender participants.

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This requirement gained prominence following controversies in boxing, notably involving Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics, who were flagged by the International Boxing Association's gender eligibility tests.

While World Athletics provided national federations with approximately £75 per athlete for the World Championships in Tokyo, UK Athletics has now shifted the financial burden onto the athletes themselves, according to a report in The Times.

The decision has drawn criticism, with many pointing out the disparity, as male athletes are not subject to these tests. Furthermore, the cost is seen as a significant burden for many track and field stars who are not high earners.

For the Paris 2024 Olympic cycle, Athlete Performance Awards (APAs) were capped at £28,000 annually, with the British Elite Athlete Association estimating the average athlete earned less than £22,500. This contrasts with anti-doping tests, which also serve to protect the integrity of the sport but are not paid for by the athletes.

UK Athletics has stated it maintains a hardship fund to evaluate athletes' financial needs for testing on a case-by-case basis.

When announcing the SRY gene test requirement, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe emphasised its importance in safeguarding female sport.

"The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection and the promotion of the integrity of women's sport," he stated last year.

"It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling. The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case."

Coe added, "We are saying, at the elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female. It was always very clear to the World Athletics Council and me that gender cannot trump biology."

In recent years, various sports have tightened their regulations. In 2020, World Rugby was the first international federation to ban transgender women from elite and international competition. However, policies vary, as the Football Association (FA) decided against a similar ban in the women's game in April of last year.