May 2019 Contents

May 2019

Track and Field Contents Writers of P. 1 President’s Message America P. 2 Leading Books of 2018 - Finalists (Founded June 7, 1973) P. 3 Roberto Luigi Quercetani RIP P. 4 CAS Upholds IAAF’s Female Eligibility Regulations PRESIDENT P. 5 Newly Released LA 2028 Olympic Budget Remains “In Line” With Bid Estimates Jack Pfeifer P. 6 A Victory for Female Athletes Everywhere 2199 NW Everett St. #601 Portland, Oregon 97210 P. 10 Paris Councillor Calls for Referendum on Whether to Cancel 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Office/home: 917-579- Games 5392. Email: P. 11 Gamecock Alumna Kryst Wins Miss USA Competition [email protected] P. 12 IAAF Letter to the World Medical Association SECRETARY- P. 13 Eastern Track League TREASURER P. 14 My First Sub-4 Tom Casacky P. 15 San Jose State Loses Historic Track to Make Way for Parking P.O. Box 4288 P. 16 OTC Elite Heads to Flagstaff for Altitude Training Napa, CA 94558 Phone: 818-321-3234 P. 17 What an Olympic Medalist, Homeless in Seattle, Wants You to Know Email: [email protected] P. 19 Nike Told Me to Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted a Baby P. 20 We Lost Another New York Sports Media Character this Week; Robert Elkin FAST P. 22 The Olympic Marathon Trials Are (Still) In Jeopardy-Here’s What USATF & the IAAF Can Dave Johnson Email: Do to Fix It [email protected] P. 24 Partial Fixtures List Phone: 215-898-6145

WEBMASTER Michael McLaughlin President’s Message - May 2019 Email: Gender Identity [email protected] The thorny subjects of hypoandrogenism and transgender politics reached a crescendo in re- Phone: 815-529-8454 cent weeks as the question of Caster Semenya’s eligibility to compete as a woman has been ruled NEWSLETTER EDITOR on yet again by an international body. Shawn Price A number of pertinent articles appear in this month’s Newsletter, including a particularly Email: lengthy and insightful one by Doriane Lambelet Coleman, an excellent runner in her own right [email protected] and now a law professor at Duke. Phone: 979-661-0731 In our view, the whole sustainability of a level playing field for women’s sports is at stake. The nation of South Africa, alas, sees it differently, as it continues to demand that Semenya and others be allowed to compete against women regardless of their testosterone levels. They and others portray it as a civil rights issue. The subject has reached the United States as well, where in the state of Connecticut two transgender runners now dominate the girls’ sprints. Will there come a time when transgender and hypoandrogenist athletes have their own division in the Special Olympics?

Awards Breakfast June 7 in Austin TAFWA’s annual membership get-together and awards presentation will take place Friday morning June 7 at 9 AM at the University of Texas Club on the Texas campus during the NCAA Championships in Austin. We encourage you to attend. The gathering will include several prominent college competitors and their coaches, who will be available for interview. Breakfast is $10 for members. If you have not paid your dues of $30 for 2019, this can be done at the door. We will also accept dues at that time for 2020. Not everyone has Paypal. The club is located at 2108 Robert Dedman Drive, on the east side of Darrell Royal-Texas Stadium. This is TAFWA’s only gathering for 2019. Plans are also now underway for our event in 2020, to be held in Eugene during the Olympic Trials.

Hayward Field Construction continues at the new Hayward Field in Eugene. We drove past the construction site along Agate Street on a recent visit to town. The footprint of the new stadium is considerably larger than the previous building. The curved portion of the horseshoe end has been begun along with the tower at the other end of the backstretch. A proposed date for the official opening of the new stadium has been a moving target. Word was that, thanks in part to excellent weather in 2018 and early 2019, construction was ahead of schedule. No longer. The date now being publicly stated is May 1, 2020. This is a matter of weeks before the Oregon state high school championships, the Prefontaine Classic and the Pac-12 Conference championships are scheduled to be held. This year’s Prefontaine meet has of course been relocated to Stanford, while the Oregon state meet has been split into three smaller meets at two different locations, on two different weekends. Next year’s Pac-12 meet is currently listed as tentatively being held in Eugene. The Olympic Trials are scheduled for June 19-28. If there are unforeseen delays in construction between now and then, stay tuned. Ticket sales for the Trials and for the 2021 World Championships are being organized at the present time. Notices have been sent to longtime season-ticket holders at the old Hayward Field. No seating plan has been released. At latest word, those who wish to purchase prime seats at the Trials are required to appear in person in Eugene in June 2019 at a given time and date in order to secure tickets.

Newsletter Schedule This month’s Newsletter is intentionally arriving the middle of the month. The next issue will be July 1, where we will report on the winners of this year’s TAFWA Awards. Leading Books of 2018 Track and Field Writers of America encourages our THE WIZARD OF FOZ coaches and teams to create libraries of track and field Dick Fosbury’s One Man High Jump Revolution literature that can travel with their teams from practice and By Bob Welch with Dick Fosbury competitions. Skyhorse Publishing New York, 2018 Our sport is rich and alive in literature, history and training expertise. The written word can be inspiring, challeng- LET YOUR MIND RUN ing and give continuity to the baton of track and field being A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory passed onto future generations. By Deena Kastor and Michelle Hamilton Crown Publishing, A book can be a great training partner to what is often a New York, 2018 lonely sport. This has been an outstanding year in publishing books of a Track & Field nature. VARSITY SEVEN: An American Rift Valley By Peter Hawkins Our Finalists from this years Track and Field Writers Starr Press of America 2018 Selections are: Spokane, Washington, 2018

TIGERBELLE: The Wyomia Tyrus Story THE INCOMPLETE BOOK OF RUNNING By Wyomia Tyrus and Elizabeth Terzakis By Peter Sagal Akashic Books Simon and Schuster NY,2018 Kindle 2018 TAFWA Membership Dues for 2019 TAFWA dues for 2019 will remain at $30, and will buy you a series of excellent newsletters, the 2019 FAST Annual, and privileged entry to special TAFWA social events at the NCAA Championships in Austin (our yearly breakfast with athletes and coaches). Don’t miss out! You can send a check, payable to TAFWA, to PO Box 4288, Napa, CA 94558, or use PayPal, to the ad- dress [email protected]. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 2 - May 2019 Athletics Historian Quercetani Dies The IAAF is deeply saddened to hear that renowned athletics historian Roberto Luigi Quercetani died on Monday (May 13) at the age of 97. The doyen of athletics statisticians, Quercetani was a founder member of the Association of Track Field Statisticians (ATFS) and its president from 1950 until 1968 and the general editor of the ATFS Annual each year to 1969. RLQ, as he was affectionately known, was one of the most prolific and knowl- edgeable of athletics historians and statisticians. During his long lifetime he produced a colossal body of work – books that document track and field in minute and loving detail from the pioneering Handbook on Olympic Games Track and Field Athletics with Don Potts in 1948. His first major work in English was A World History of Track and Field Athletics IAAF Council member Anna Riccardi, Roberto L Quercetani and FIDAL Deputy Vice 1864-1964, a superbly written and au- President Alberto Morini in Florence, Salone dei Cinquecento (FIDAL) © Copyright thoritative account of how our sport developed over that century. Further versions were both updated and published in various languages and over the years he wrote books dealing with the history of individual groups of events. He led the compilation and publication of four volumes of Track & Field Performances Through the Years that covered world lists from 1921 to 1950, the years before the annual ATFS lists. A freelance journalist, he covered most of the world’s major athletics events for many years, especially from 1951 for La Gazzetto dello Sport and contributed to a wide range of publications. A lover of trivia, his final offering – written in his nineties – was entitled Intriguing Facts & Figures from Athletics History 1860-2014 and dedicated to his beloved wife Maria Luisa “for her untiring support and understanding”. Born in Florence in May 1922, Quercetani was only 10 when athletics entered his life. He was out walking with his father in August 1932 when he caught sight of a large cinema screen on top of a building announcing that Luigi Beccali had won the Olympic 1500m title in Los Angeles the previous day. That fired his imagination and he started collecting newspaper clippings relating to athletics. It was the start of a lifetime’s obsession with the sport’s facts and figures. Among his earliest treasured memories was of seeing Beccali set an Italian 800m record during halftime at a football match in his native city in 1933. From schooldays he became a student and master of foreign languages, skills that helped him to establish contacts and friendships worldwide and that enabled him to become an interpreter with the Allied armies in Italy by 1944. During his teens he avidly read Italian, French, German, Swedish and American sports newspapers and magazines as he subscribed to and contributed to publications in several countries from the late 1930s. Soon after the war, he started corresponding with US mathematician Donald Potts in California. They formed a famous partnership that produced the first detailed world all-time lists and led to the extensive documentation athletics to which we are accustomed but which was exceptionally poor when Roberto and his associates started their work. He also started the prestigious and authoritative annual World Merit Rankings for Track & Field News in 1947. Quercetani also collaborated closely with Swiss statistician Fulvio Regli and it was he who proposed forming an international association of athletics statisticians. The ATFS was duly formed in a café in Brussels during the 1950 European Championships. The founder members were Quercetani, Regli, Bruno Bonomelli, André Greuze, Erich Kamper, Norris McWhirter, André Senay, Björn-Johan Weckman and Ekkehard zur Megede plus two others who could not be present: Potts and Wolfgang Wünsche. Quercetani was elected president with Harold Abrahams as honorary president. The first ATFS Annual, edited by Quercetani and Regli, appeared in 1951 – a huge breakthrough in the collation of statistics, and the publication of that invaluable annual continues to this day. “His name will always be revered by those of us who cherish his body of work, and those who had the privilege of knowing him have lost a wise and genial friend,” said statistician Mel Watman. “As I wrote in the ATFS Jubilee Book in 2000, ‘to me, RLQ was a god’ when I started my life-long hobby of athletics statistics in the late 1950s, and I have felt hugely honoured to have followed in his footsteps as Editor of the ATFS An- nual from 1984,” said Peter Matthews. “I was delighted that until very recently Roberto liked to submit one of his cogent and well-researched articles for inclusion in the Annual each year. It was always a delight to meet him at various major meetings until he decided a few years ago to ‘retire’ from such travel.” Quercetani is survived by his wife, Maria Luisa.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 3 - May 2019 CAS Upholds IAAF’s Female Eligibility Regulations PRESS RELEASE FROM THE IAAF The IAAF is grateful to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for its detailed and prompt response to the challenge made to its Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification for athletes with differences of sex development, and is pleased that the Regulations were found to be a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s legitimate aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics in the Restricted Events. The Regulations will come into effect on 8 May 2019 at which time all Relevant Athletes (as defined in clause 2.2(a) of the Regulations) wishing to compete in the female classification in a Restricted Event (as defined in clause 2.2(b) of the Regulations) at an International Competition need to meet the Eligibility Conditions set out in clause 2.3 of the Regulations. The IAAF notes the three concerns expressed by the CAS Panel as to the fairness of the implementation of the Regulations. The CAS Panel in the Chand case (CAS 2014/A/3759) found that the previous iteration of the regulations were administered with ‘care and compassion’ by the IAAF, and this will not change. As the Regula- tions expressly state, the IAAF will keep all practical matters of implementation under periodic review. Indeed, the IAAF has already addressed the CAS Panel’s first concern by mitigating the consequences of unintentional non-compliance by an athlete in a new clause 3.15. Summary of process for Relevant Athletes who are seeking eligibility for the IAAF World Championships in Doha 2019:

• An athlete who is a Relevant Athlete and wishes to compete in the female classification in a Restricted Event in an International Competition should immediately consult the Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classifi- cation for athletes with differences of sex development [insert link] and consult her medical team. • Relevant Athletes have one week (7 days) from today (1 May 2019) to reduce testosterone levels to within the regulation levels so are encouraged to initiate their suppressive treatment as soon as possible. Relevant Athletes registered to compete in the IAAF Diamond League Doha on 3 May 2019 are eligible to compete at that competition (including in Restricted Events) without decreasing their testosterone level below 5 nmol/L. • The Eligibility Conditions require a Relevant Athlete to reduce her testosterone levels to below 5 nmol/L for a continuous period of at least six months prior to competition in the female classification in a Restricted Event at an International Competition. As a special transitional provision to ensure the delay caused by the legal challenge to the Regulations does not prejudice Relevant Athletes, the IAAF will accept that Relevant Athletes who comply with the 5 nmol/L limit starting on or before 8 May 2019 will be eligible for the IAAF World Champion- ships Doha 2019, assuming they meet the other required Eligibility Conditions. • By 8 May 2019, Relevant Athletes seeking eligibility for the IAAF World Championships Doha 2019 must undergo a blood sampling to measure their serum testosterone level (using a mass spectrometry-based method as described in the Regulations). The testosterone concentration obtained from this blood sample must be below 5 nmol/L and remain under this value as long as the athlete is seeking eligibility to compete in the female classification in a Restricted Event at International Competition. Should the athlete show a testosterone concentration (obtained from samples collected pursuant to the athlete’s regular testing or from without notice IAAF tests) of 5 nmol/L or above before the IAAF World Championships Doha 2019, she may be declared ineligible to compete in the female classification in Restricted Events at those World Championships.

For any other possible Relevant Athlete (whose case has not previously been dealt with by the IAAF Health and Science Department) Please read the IAAF Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification for athletes with differences of sex development and, if appropriate, get in contact with the IAAF Medical Manager (see below). For the avoidance of doubt, no athlete will be forced to undergo any assessment and/or treatment under these Regulations. It is each athlete’s responsibility, in close consultation with her medical team, to decide whether or not to proceed with any assessment and/or treatment.

Athletes, athlete support personnel and National Federation officials with questions about the application of the new Regulations are strongly encouraged to contact the IAAF Medical Manager by email at: medical.confi- [email protected]. All Media or General Enquires should be directed to: [email protected]

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 4 - May 2019 Newly Released LA 2028 Olympic Budget Remains “In Line” With Bid Estimates By Robert Livingstone | https://gamesbids.com/eng/future-olympic-games/newly-released-la-2028-olympic-budget-remains-in-line-with-bid-estimates/ While still nine years from the Opening Ceremony, “revenue for the Games includes a significant contribution organizers of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games claim from the International Olympic Committee, domestic spon- budget estimates made during a bid for the 2024 Games are sors, ticket sales, hospitality, licensing and merchandising.” still on target for 2028. Earlier this month opposition group NOlympics LA LA was awarded the 2028 Games instead of the 2024 launched a campaign to raise money to protest the Olym- Games as part of a double allocation by the International pics in Tokyo at an event planned for this July, one year Olympic Committee (IOC) that ceded Paris the 2024 Games ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Games. The opponents of the Los with financial consolations given to the U.S. city for accept- Angeles Games claim Angelenos will be displaced from their ing the later event. homes near the Memorial Coliseum due to the construction The USD $6.9 billion inflation-adjusted budget an- of a hotel planned for the Olympics. nounced Tuesday exceeds a 2016 estimate of $6.2 billion A 2017 survey by the IOC revealed that 78 percent who adjusted to 2024 inflation. However officials say the new were asked in Los Angeles said they support the Games. “real dollar” estimate accounts for inflation over time as After a run of costly and over-budget summer Games funds are received and spent during the 11-year project, and in Beijing, London, Rio and next year in Tokyo, the IOC is remains in line with original estimates. desperate to deliver an economically feasible event in order Organizers further claim three percent has been added to attract more cities to bid for and host Games in the fu- to the original 2024 budget to account for a $160 million ture. Cities have been dropping out of Summer and Winter investment in local youth sport and four additional years of Games bids after government and citizens have balked at operation due to the shift to 2028. the risks involved. The privately funded and balanced budget has been inde- The IOC are relying on both Paris and Los Angeles to pendently evaluated by KPMG, and includes a 10 percent embrace the Agenda 2020 reforms and deliver Games that contingency of $615.9 million. can be a model for the future. “Our budget is privately funded, realistic and fiscally conservative,” LA 2028 Chair Casey Wasserman said on the budget release. “We are redefining what it means to host a successful Games and look forward to planning and hosting an amazing experience that will make our community proud.” At bid time, the LA Olympic bid committee claimed the proposal was low-risk due the the use of only existing, planned and temporary facilities where no new construction is required for venues or transporta- tion infrastructure. This new reality, it was claimed, was made possible by Olympic Agenda 2020 – an IOC reform package that allows for greater efficiency and sustainability while hosting the Games. Los Angeles will use its existing university infrastructure to house athletes and media personnel, eliminating one of the most costly construction projects associated with the Games. A statement by the organizing committee Tuesday further claimed TAFWA Newsletter - Page 5 - May 2019 A Victory for Female Athletes Everywhere By Doriane Lambelet Coleman | Quillette https://quillette.com/2019/05/03/a-victory-for-female-athletes-everywhere/ The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) this week upheld the made clear that, going forward, she expects to compete in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) regula- 5000 meters as a female. tions governing eligibility for the women’s category in internation- Since the regulations are about sex classifications, the argu- al elite athletics competition. In effect, CAS decided the question ments the parties made at CAS were necessarily based in appli- “who is a woman” for purposes of elite sport. And it ratified the cable anti-discrimination law. Thus, Ms. Semenya argued that the IAAF’s preferred answer: A woman in sport is anyone whose legal regulations are discriminatory and that the discrimination cannot identity is female—whether they personally identify as such or be justified as necessary to meet sport’s goals for the women’s not—and who has testosterone (T) levels in the female range. category, or proportional in the way they are tailored. In turn, the That may seem like a mere technical ruling. But as I’ll explain in IAAF responded that the regulations are not discriminatory, but this article, the ramifications are profound for female athletics that if they are, such discrimination is necessary and proportional everywhere—a cause that has been central to my life and to the given the IAAF’s goals. The material that follows is adapted from lives of millions of girls and women worldwide. the arguments that I and others put forward to the CAS on behalf The female range for testosterone is categorically different from of the IAAF. the male range. In general, males have 10 to 30 times more T than * * * females. Most females, including most elite female athletes, have T The goals of elite competitive sport are to identify and showcase levels in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L). For the best athletes, to produce economic, political, developmental, men, typical values are 10 to 35 nmol/L. The reason there is a gap, and health-related benefits for stakeholders and society, and to with no overlap between the ranges, is that beginning in puberty, foster progressive social and political change. Sport is widely seen the testes produce a lot more T than ovaries and adrenal glands as adding enormous value in each of these respects. combined. And so the IAAF maximum of 5 nmol/L for women has The IAAF’s mission and agenda mirror these goals. The IAAF been set, generously, to reflect the upper bound of T levels that can regulates competition internationally and administers some of its be produced even by polycystic ovaries. own events for the purpose of establishing the hierarchy of ath- No single tool is perfect for these purposes, but testosterone letes in each specialty. It celebrates the champions. And it parlays comes pretty close. Sport already tests for T levels as part of stan- those competitions and champions into business opportunities dard anti-doping controls, and it is much less intrusive than other that feed money back into all levels of the sport and into political diagnostic techniques used to determine sex. Most importantly, opportunities related to its progressive goals. it’s the best single physiological marker for sport’s purposes. That’s One of the most important aspects of this last agenda item is because the primary reason for the sex differences in the physical empowering girls and women through athletics. In this respect, attributes that contribute to elite athletic performance is expo- the IAAF has embraced as its own the progressive public policy sure to much higher levels of testosterone during male pubertal mandate of many governments around the world. Specifically, the growth. Those physical attributes include power generation, decision to carve out and equally to support separate men’s and aerobic power, body composition and fuel utilization. Compared to women’s competition categories, reflects the widely-held view females, males have greater lean body mass (more skeletal muscle that girls and women are entitled to parity with boys and men in and less fat), larger hearts (both in absolute terms and scaled to the distribution of sporting opportunities and the highly valued lean body mass), higher cardiac outputs, larger hemoglobin mass, goods that flow from participation in this institutional setting. The larger VO2 max (i.e. a person’s ability to take in oxygen), greater continuing commitment to equality among the sexes in this sphere glycogen utilization, and higher anaerobic capacity. also reflects the data that show that empowering girls and women The result of this differential is the performance gap between has exponential benefits for society. males and females that justifies the existence of a women’s cat- These benefits are well-understood. As I have written elsewhere, egory in competitive sports. That gap typically extends to 10-12%. they include financial, psychological, and political benefits for Without an eligibility rule based in sex-linked traits, we wouldn’t individual champions; for their governments, leagues, companies, see female bodies on any podium. Equally important, without such teams and communities; and for the “vast majority of athletes— an eligibility rule, it’s unlikely that societies could continue legally both development and elite athletes—[who] benefit from the to sustain separate girls and women’s only sport. The set-aside is institutional structures established to cultivate the champions and premised on inherent biological differences between the sexes. If the enterprise.” that basis were eliminated, it’s unclear how the classification would In the United States, the commitment to provide equal op- pass muster under standard legal anti-discrimination analysis. portunities to girls and women in sport is based in Title IX of As is now widely known, the IAAF’s rule was challenged by Ms. the Education Amendments of 1972. As Donna de Varona of the Caster Semenya, a multiple World and Olympic Champion in the Women’s Sports Foundation and Brooke-Marciniak of Ernst & 800 meters. She is an “affected athlete” under IAAF regulations, Young have explained, “Title IX … requires us to invest in male and which list the specific differences of sex development (DSDs) that female athletes equally. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the are of concern to sport. These cases all involve “46, XY” disorders, basis of sex, in any education program or activity receiving federal whereby individuals with one X chromosome and one Y chromo- financial assistance—fortunately for the development of women’s some in each cell (a pattern normally typical of males) may have sport, this law also included athletic programs.” external genitalia that are not distinctively male or female; never- My own story is a testament to the power of mandatory set- theless, they have testes which produce bioavailable T in the nor- asides for female sport and to the value they create for girls and mal male range. Athletes who are legally identified as female, who women that would not exist otherwise. I was the first female recip- have one of the listed 46, XY conditions, and who wish to compete ient of a full track scholarship to Villanova University in 1978, six in certain events restricted to females, are required to drop their T years after Title IX passed into law. I was recruited because I was levels into the female range (i.e., under 5 nmol/L), in consultation one of the best under-18 (U18) female half-milers coming out of with their physician and using the means of their choice. Usually, a U.S. high schools that year. Because even mediocre boys could and birth control pill will do. Should they choose not to reduce their T did run faster, had Title IX not forced colleges to create programs levels, affected athletes can compete in different events, or in the and set-aside funds for girls, I wouldn’t have gotten that scholar- male category, or in non-IAAF events. Ms. Semenya has already ship. And because my family was poor, I might never have gone TAFWA Newsletter - Page 6 - May 2019 to college. My life story would have been altered in innumerable and for sport to meet its associated goals. Despite the arguments ways. Most importantly for present purposes, I would not exist of some social scientists who prefer theory to facts, this is not a as someone with the leadership skills and experience to advocate legitimately debatable proposition. either for clean sport or for equality for females. I would not exist For example, as my colleague Wickliffe Shreve and I have shown, as someone who could give back, certainly not in the way that I do just in the single year 2017, Olympic and World Champion Allyson as a law teacher, and certainly not in this global context. Title IX Felix’s lifetime best in the 400 meters of 49.26 seconds was sur- powered this outcome. passed over 15,000 times by boys and by men. This overwhelming Importantly, it did this not only by affording me that first dominance by male-bodied athletes over female-bodied athletes scholarship, but also by providing me with the same chance as the is not the result of culture, resources, training or gender identity. best boys coming out of high school at securing the longer-term Rather, it is the result of having male gonadal sex, specifically benefits of participation in elite sport. Winning gave me confi- testes and bioavailable testosterone in the male rather than the dence, including on a stage. Training for long-term goals taught female range. Even non-elite male-bodied athletes, including boys, me time management, independence, and goal orientation. Losing can and do routinely surpass the very best female athletes. When made me resilient. And traveling made me tough and sophisticated we compare the latter two groups—the best elite females against about the world, including about how to make my voice heard in non-elite boys and men—the performance gap is small but col- traditionally male spaces. The same is true for many other girls and lectively determinative. women for whom elite sport has also been something of an equal- To illustrate this point, Jeff Wald, Wickliffe Shreve, Richard izer in a world that has long privileged boys and men. Clark, and I developed the visual that appears below, taking three It matters that girls and women are afforded opportunities of our sport’s best-known female stars, all of whom are multiple equal to boys and men, including in elite athletics. It matters Olympic and World Championship gold medalists who, because because this is the only way sport can achieve its empowerment of their role-model status, continue to produce valuable goods goals. for themselves and for the IAAF: Sanya Richards-Ross, Allyson One can argue that empowering girls and women in particular Felix, and Christine Ohuruogu. We placed each of their indi- shouldn’t be a focus for sport or for any institution. One can argue vidual lifetime bests in the 400 meters in the sea of male-bodied that there are other laudable goals, that girls and women aren’t the performances run just in the single year 2017. As expected, the only marginalized sub-populations, that the allocation of scarce figure shows that Richards-Ross, Felix, and Ohuruogu would lose resources should be made differently. But until these arguments to the very best senior men that year—Wayde van Niekerk, Fred persuade policymakers to renege on existing commitments, it Kerley, and Isaac Makwala—by a margin of about 12%. But it also remains not only a legitimate policy choice but also a mandate. shows that even at their absolute best, Richards-Ross, Felix, and Like other policy moves that involve big cultural shifts, the com- Ohuruogu would go on to lose to literally thousands of other boys mitment to treat female athletes equally took years to take hold, and men, including many whose times wouldn’t place them in the and although it’s rarely questioned today, it remains fragile. For sport’s elite male echelons. example, the percentage of girls and women taking part in sport To be clear, our claim is not that an identity-based eligibility has increased, but it’s still smaller than the percentage of boys and rule would introduce this enormous sea of boys and men into men. The most recently collected statistics show that participa- women’s competition. Rather, it’s that biologically male athletes— tion by middle-school U.S. girls is actually decreasing. Funding for however they identify—don’t have to be elite to surpass even the and promotion of boys and men remains higher, not only because very best biologically female athletes. And it doesn’t take a sea of their participation rates are higher but also because their events them to obliterate the females’ competitive chances at every level are more popular. There are exceptions, but it’s still true that, as a of competition. If only a very small sub-set turn out to identify as society, we commit to female sport because we have to, while we women, we will be overwhelmed. commit to men’s sport because we want to. There is no doubt that This is not a theoretical proposition. At least two sets of natural if someone proposed a change in the eligibility rule for the men’s experiments make clear that this would be the eventual outcome if category that threatened to dismantle it and the goods it produces entry into the women’s category isn’t conditioned on gonadal sex, for the participants, their sponsors, and fans, this proposal would or at least on testosterone levels as their least intrusive proxy. go nowhere. First, inspired by the Obama administration’s suggestion— As we work to cement our hard-won, enormously valuable contained in the form of “guidance” from the Departments of equality, Title IX and similar laws and policies around the world Justice and Education—that sex classifications might be replaced have, and continue to be, an important prod and protection, with gender-identity classifications in school settings, the state barring sex discrimination that isn’t based in inherent biologi- of Connecticut’s public high school athletic association recently cal differences and encouraging affirmative measures for females decided that transgender girls must be permitted to compete on when either inherent differences or continuing disparities make their school athletic teams based solely on their gender identity. clear they are necessary. Importantly, legal efforts to reform sex There is no requirement that they first start on puberty blockers discrimination law by erasing “sex” and replacing it with “identity” or be on gender-affirming hormones. With this new rule in place, or “gender identity” haven’t (yet) succeeded in changing this basic in June 2018, two trans girls who had previously competed as framework. Biological sex remains an important legal classifica- boys dominated the competition at Connecticut’s girls track and tion, including in relevant domestic and international law; and in- field championships. One “took first place in both the 100 and 200 herent biological differences between the sexes remain an essential meter dash, while [the other] finished second in the 100.” In the feature of sex discrimination law in particular. process, according to one widely shared media report, they report- * * * edly “inspired multiple other transgender entrants.” But of course, It is well-understood by physical scientists, and by athletes, as various parents pointed out, they also displaced “the girls who coaches and governing bodies, that if elite sport didn’t set aside, work really hard to do well and qualify for” the next-level regional maintain and support a separate category for girls and women competitions. Because moving on to the next level is the basis for based on inherent differences between the sexes, the best ath- additional competitive experience and exposure, these displace- letes—the ones we see and celebrate—would always be boys and ments are inevitably significant. This season, the faster of the two men. continues easily to beat the females in the field. Her times are Specifically, if it were decided that eligibility for the women’s within but not near the top of the range run in the parallel boys’ category should be based on identity rather than gonadal sex—or events. if we adopted the theoretical proposition that because some males A second example: Going into the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, identify as females, some females have testes—it would be impos- South African exercise scientist Ross Tucker explained that sible to achieve parity of opportunity in this realm of society, because the IAAF’s previous testosterone-based eligibility rule TAFWA Newsletter - Page 7 - May 2019 was not in force, Caster Semenya basically had a 100% chance of as biological boys and men do—to have their equally exceptional winning gold in the women’s 800 meters. In his words: “There is no but non-gonadal traits isolated and celebrated. It is within the more certain gold medal in the Rio Olympics than Semenya. She categories that a Usain Bolt and a Katy Ledecky are properly held could trip and fall, anywhere in the first lap, lose 20m, and still win out as indomitable superstars. the race…She is proof of the benefit of testosterone to intersex There are also those who argue that the focus on the female athletes.” body is racist. This is truly absurd if you know our sport and the Ms. Semenya proved Dr. Tucker right, of course; but the effect many fabulous black and brown women who are not only ubiq- of the testosterone rule’s suspension was even more powerful than uitous but also regularly celebrated. Perhaps because they know even he had predicted: Her 100% chance of winning gold turned this, actual sports experts are more careful with such claims. into a 100% win share for the three suspected 46, XY DSD athletes They merely note that any implementation of a biologically-based in the race, and a 0% share for the biological females in the field. eligibility rule will have a disparate impact on athletes from the (Note that two of the three—Ms. Semenya and Francine Niyonsa- so-called “global south” (i.e. poor countries in Asia, Africa, Latin ba of Burundi—have publicly acknowledged that they are affected America and the Caribbean). by the regulations and thus that they are 46, XY males with DSD. It is a given that male-bodied athletes who identify as women As of this writing, the third, Margaret Wambui of Kenya, has not will be impacted by the regulation since this is its design; but it’s made a similar acknowledgment; however, she and the Kenyan not at all obvious that there will be a disparate impact on those press have hinted at her status on a number of occasions.) In other from the global south since the conditions at issue occur among words, it is likely that no biological female won a medal in that all races and ethnicities. The subset of athletes from the global event at the last Olympics. At least one study suggests this is a south might be made more visible by their federations’ choices, but decades’ long pattern, reporting a “presumed…over-representation this outcome isn’t inherent in the regulations and it doesn’t tell of [46, XY DSD athletes of] approximately 1,700-fold at the po- us anything about the impacts on athletes from different regions dium level.” whose experience isn’t made public. Indeed, although the African Some have argued that the dominance of the 46, XY DSD ath- National Congress has claimed that the regulation has “racial un- letes in women’s events is not necessarily due to their T levels. It is dertones,” the organization has also argued that it “targets mainly said, for example, that advocates for the regulations are incorrectly those in East Europe, Asia and the African continent.” In other essentializing testosterone, and that T is no more determinative of words, their real claim seems to be about economics and not about outcomes in sport than are other physical and physiological traits race. like height or wingspan. These critiques have no basis in fact. As I This is the truth about race and athletics: Because our sport is wrote in the journal Law and Contemporary Problems, the differ- mostly populated at the elite levels by athletes of color, it is this ences between male-bodied and female-bodied performances group that will be most impacted however the women’s category is defined. Assuming the regulations are implemented in their hold even when we adjust for the fact that the best elite athletes are current state, with the IAAF using female T levels to set the “freaks of nature” and that their success can be largely attributed to their boundaries of the category, the women who will benefit most will unusual physical traits. Sex, specifically testes and their effects, matter in ways be biological females of color. If the regulations are somehow sus- that other biological differences among athletes do not. For example, swimmer pended or overturned, most of the women who will lose out will and multiple Gold Medalist Missy Franklin is six feet two inches tall with a wing be biological females of color. There is discrimination either way, span of six feet four inches. Her world record in the 200 meters backstroke, set at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, is 2:04.06. Ryan Lochte’s world record, but it’s about sex, not race. The women’s 800 meters is a perfect set at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, was a full nine seconds faster at 1:53.94. example, as current results and rankings provide a strong indica- If Franklin had been in that race, at her best she would have been about a half tion that the podiums at the 2019 World Championships and 2020 a lap behind Lochte when he finished, even though they are the same height Olympic Games are likely to be graced by athletes of color. and have just about the same wingspan. In a world in which competitors were * * * categorized by height and wingspan (or just height or just wingspan) instead of As an academic, I appreciate the value of intellectual inquiry sex, Franklin would not have had a world record; she would not have been on the that challenges our socially constructed defaults. As someone born podium; in fact, she would not have made the team. In those circumstances, we into a mixed-race family steeped in the civil rights movement—my might not even know her name. father was black and my mother was white—I was nurtured to recognize the harm that social constructions about race and sex can There are those who recoil at this kind of analysis because it do to subordinated individuals, groups and societies. As the wife of implicitly recognizes that elite sport celebrates the athletic body, a black man and the mother of two black sons, my radar for both including the athletic male body in the men’s category and the ath- explicit and implied racism is finely tuned. As a woman, a feminist letic female body in the women’s. From their perspective, the latter and a lawyer, I have an abiding commitment to anti-discrimination isn’t a legitimate goal or effect because, among other things, it norms, and to race and sex discrimination laws in particular. As privileges femininity. They say that testes and T levels in the male a humanist, I believe that each one of us has the right to self- range should be treated like other special traits that sport properly identify. celebrates. Accordingly, Ms. Semenya is special because she is a But none of this confuses me about sex, sex traits, and their woman with testes, just like Missy Franklin is special because she irrefutable salience in law and society. The reason there are policies is a woman with an unusually large wingspan. As an academic, I’m against sex discrimination—including policies that encourage familiar with the game that is deconstructing established truths affirmative action for females—is because females have been sub- and then re-imagining the world differently. But this isn’t the ordinated across time and geography on the explicit basis of sex, academy and it isn’t a game. In the real world, the analogy has no and precisely because of our sex-specific biology. This includes the merit. biology that determines the performance gap in elite sport. Sport has never sought to celebrate testes as special in either The sex-based physical differences in strength, power and the men’s or the women’s category. Precisely the opposite is true: endurance that allow thousands of men and boys each year to sur- Gonadal sex traits define the categories, and then each separate pass the performance of the single best female are the very same category sets out to isolate and celebrate other characteristics. In differences that make us especially vulnerable to stranger and the men’s category, testes and male T levels are perfectly normal domestic violence, including to sexual violence. This includes our and not at all special. Every single male in the category has them, different reproductive biology. For example, our endocrine cycles and so the category isolates and celebrates different traits, like are the basis for menstrual-period segregations in many societies, height and wingspan. And the women’s category was developed to and in sport these same cycles cause us to lose valuable iron stores exclude competitors with testes and T levels outside of the female and diminish our red blood cell counts and oxygen carrying capac- range, so that biological girls and women could have the chance— ity relative to boys and men. (It is to minimize these loses that TAFWA Newsletter - Page 8 - May 2019 we often choose to take birth control pills to regulate our cycles.) A particularly misogynistic form of the poor sportsmanship There is a lot that is beautiful, powerful even, about being female, story is that the females in the field who express concern are sore including, and perhaps especially, our capacity to bear children. losers who just aren’t as talented as the biologically male athletes But this isn’t an offset, it’s just an also-distinguishing feature of who beat them. Ms. Semenya’s supporters were especially vicious our existence. It’s all part of who we are and our identities. to Great Britain’s Lynsey Sharp, who was fifth in the women’s 800 And so, when we are told that 46, XY males with DSD who meters final at the Rio Olympics, after she vented her understand- identify as female are no different from us because identity is all able frustration in her post-race press conference. Ignoring the that matters, the effect is to erase our deeply significant, sex- fact that Ms. Sharp’s performance would have earned her at least a specific experience both on and off the track. When we are told bronze medal had a T-based eligibility rule been in effect, journal- these things directly and indirectly by sports governing bodies, ists wrote that she wouldn’t have complained if she’d medaled, and we feel betrayed. We also feel robbed: of the spots on the podium; that she didn’t medal because she isn’t as talented or doesn’t work of the psychic, financial, and professional goods that would have as hard as the three male-bodied athletes who did. flowed from earning our places there; and of the opportunities These critics betray their own ignorance when they say these to be role models for little girls who need to see strong, victori- things. They don’t know that 18-year-old males routinely run in ous females so that they can dream big dreams themselves. Social the 1:55 range, but that running this fast would be impossible science literature focused on race and sex is replete with empirical even for the world’s best 18-year-old female. They don’t know that evidence supporting the common-sense intuition that it matters men’s championship events are often run tactically but that wom- that people can see successful role models who look like them. To en’s never are, at least not by the biological females in the race, be- quote Beyoncé, quoting Marian Wright Edelman: “You can’t be cause the latter don’t have the explosive power to pull off late-race what you can’t see.” surges; or that, even at their peak, non-doped females can’t plan to When we are told that 46, XY males with DSD who identify as negative split–run faster in the fourth 200 meters than the second female are simply “women with hyperandrogenism,” or “women or third—in a world class race. It isn’t awesome to watch athletes with high T,” we aren’t fooled. We are just puzzled about why do these things in women’s races; it’s a universal tell. others are—or would want to pretend to be. Elite sport is in the Females who have specialized in the 800 meters do know these business of bodies, what they can do, and how beautiful they are things, as well as our event’s androgen-plagued history: For a long at their fittest. The movement to normalize and empower gender time, the event was overwhelmingly dominated by women who non-conforming people is enormously valuable, but this doesn’t were doping. In the current period, the spurious hormones are explain why we would want to replace sex with identity in this of mostly the result of 46, XY males with DSD. In both cases, the ath- all settings, since the effect of this move is not only to erase our letes in question may or may not have known that they were being distinguishing traits from the conversation, but also—literally— doped, or recruited for their DSDs, by their federations to increase our bodies from the podium. their country’s medal count. For the non-doped females on the Finally, when we are told that we are “ignorant” and “racist” track, though, the difference is mostly irrelevant. when we notice that males with DSD have male secondary sex Bullying people into silence isn’t a respectable solution to policy characteristics, the effect is to denigrate our well-honed, protec- disagreements. It’s wrong to treat people as though their voice is tive instincts and also our intelligence. The truth is that we know illegitimate simply because you would prefer to control the narra- secondary sex characteristics well. We watched them develop over tive. In this space that’s been set aside for our bodies precisely be- the course of our adolescences and, even on the track, we were wit- cause they are different, it’s especially insidious to try to disguise ness to their effects on our relative performances: At 12 years old, a new form of female subordination—“You can’t talk about her we were the same or sometimes even faster than the boys, but over body”—as progressive politics. time, and certainly by age 18, those same boys were unreachable. Although I’m not a trained empiricist, I did communicate at For those brown girls and women among us—and we are plentiful length with top female athletes and their teams as I prepared in the women’s 800—the effect of these charges of ignorance and to testify at the CAS about this case. I wanted to be able—as racism, especially when they are leveled by white people, is itself accurately as possible–to describe the concerns they themselves racist: as though we somehow can’t tell males from females, or as did not feel free to express, either publicly or at the court. What though we all look like men. I found was a lot of confusion about the science; deep hurt about Whenever females in the field have dared to express their being bullied into silence by false accusations of ignorance, racism, concerns about these various erasures, Ms. Semenya’s public and bad sportsmanship; and a combination of pain and frustration supporters can be counted on to launch aggressive public attacks, about the competitive status quo. disingenuously charging them with ignorance, bigotry and a lack I did find a few top female athletes who were supportive of of sportsmanship. The effect for the females in the field is to “women with high T” in the women’s category. But I also found censor their voices in their own spaces. It is to bully them into a that the terms “women with high T” and “women with hyperan- new and ironic subordination: In a setting that was carved out for drogenism” have been widely misunderstood to mean “elevated females so that they would be protected from athletic dominance levels of male sex hormones…in the female body.” As one said, by males, they are not permitted even to take note that this is hap- “Hyperandrogenism means they have problems with their ovaries, pening. If their faces or body language betray even the slightest right?” When this misunderstanding is cleared up and they learn hint of unease, Ms. Semenya’s supporters pounce with op-eds and that the term “hyperandrogenism” has been mis-applied to cases Twitter storms loaded with personal attacks. And so, they learn to of normal T levels in biological males who identify as women, the stand stoic at the end of each race, and to freeze their faces into support disappears and what remains are questions about how and what they hope is a wholly neutral, inoffensive expression. Some why they were led to think otherwise. have sought to turn this forced silence and feigned neutrality into It is possible that there are currently active females in the field evidence that the female field is actually comfortable with the who understand the relevant biology and still support the idea of current state of affairs. This effort would be funny if it weren’t so a women’s category bounded only by gender identity. But at least Kafkaesque. As Sarah Ditum wrote in The Economist last year, at the elite level, where athletes and their families are making [t]here is a word for a situation where women talking about extraordinary sacrifices so that they can make teams, finals and female bodies is considered impermissibly antisocial, where describ- podiums, it is more reasonable to presume that most are not. As ing the consequences of sexism for women is systematically impeded, Sonia O’Sullivan wrote in 2016, “it actually feels like the major- where resources for women are redistributed to male users while re- ity of women athletes are being held to ransom, while the legal sources for men are left in male hands, and where “male” and “female” are rigidly associated with masculinity and femininity. That word is teams get their act together and make a decision on the future not “progressive”, “liberal” or any of the other terms usually associ- for women’s sport—while the athletes in question continue to ated with trans activism. The word is misogyny. compete, winning medals, setting records and walking away with a TAFWA Newsletter - Page 9 - May 2019 substantial amount of prize money.” must recognize that the underlying issue also has caused extraor- Almost everyone I spoke with was in this camp. Some have dinary harm to the females in the field; to the women’s middle trans and intersex friends, and so care a lot about a policy that distances, including their commercial and developmental aspects; does not require surgery of those whose identity doesn’t conform and to the IAAF, which has expended significant resources trying to their biology. But as one told me, “our bodies just can’t do to protect the women’s category for its intended purposes. what theirs can, and so if we’re to be able to win medals, we need The stakes were always much higher than these individual inter- protection.” Another put it this way: “We’re not allowed to speak ests, of course, which is why the case gets so much attention. Ms. publicly about it because when we do, we are attacked for being Semenya and Athletics South Africa were Claimants at CAS, and horrible people. But we talk to each other, and I’ve never talked to the IAAF was Respondent, but we were all really there negotiating another athlete in our events who isn’t frustrated, devastated, and the future of women’s sport and the ability of the gender identity completely fed up.” movement to use the female competition category to further its * * * agenda. If the Olympic Movement could continue to define the Ms. Semenya is an extraordinary person. She is courageous, category using at least female T levels, the progressive project resilient and dignified. And as my longtime colleague Edwin Moses that is empowering girls and women through sport had a future. wrote recently in Time magazine, which featured her as one of If it couldn’t, that project would fail. The gender identity move- its 100 most influential people of the year, “Caster Semenya has ment’s goals are also important, and Ms. Semenya undoubtedly taught us that sex isn’t always binary, and this has caused us to contributes to their achievement. But they didn’t similarly ride on question the merits of distributing societal benefits according to the outcome of her case. I applaud the CAS for making the right ‘male’ and ‘female’ classifications…however [her case comes out], decision. Semenya will have already made a singular historical contribution to our understanding of biological sex.” Doriane Coleman is a Professor of Law at Duke Law School. As It is beyond doubt that this road has been a difficult one for her an 800m runner, she became the U.S. National Collegiate Indoor to travel. It was difficult for me to bear witness to her process— Champion in 1982, and the Swiss National Champion in 1982 even as she remained unbelievably gracious throughout. Still, we and 1983. Paris Councillor Calls for Referendum on Whether to Cancel 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games By Daniel Etchells | Inside The Games | https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1077624/paris-councillor-calls-for-referendum-on-whether-to-cancel-2024-olympic-and-paralympic-games Paris Councillor Danielle Simonnet has called for a referendum on whether the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games should be held in the French capital after a recent survey found that 62 per cent of 6,612 voters claimed they are in favour of them being cancelled. In response to the survey, conducted by mobile network operator company Orange, Simonnet sent out a tweet asking Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Île-de-France President Valérie Pécresse and French President Emman- uel Macron what they are waiting for in organising a referendum in the Paris region. BFM TV reports that Simonnet, the co-leader of France’s Left Party with Eric Coquerel, made the proposal as part of her La France Insoumise candidature in next year’s municipal elections. She said it was in the interests of the climate and social justice. “With this goal of Paris 2024, we are in the process of prioritising equipment that does not meet the urgent needs of the population,” Simonnet said. “We are trying to impose a great metro to connect Charles de Gaulle [Airport] and the centre of Paris, while it is absolutely necessary to split the RER B (one of the five lines in the RER rapid transit system). “The daily transport in the Île-de-France region is a disaster.” According to Simonnet’s support, cancelling Paris 2024 is an ecological necessity. It is not the first time she has called for a referendum having also done so in February 2017, during the bid- ding process for the Games. Speaking at the time, Simonnet said: “We are in the same situation as Brazil with the 2014 World Cup “The Brazilians were delighted at first to welcome it because they are football fans, then, when they became aware of the consequences in terms of austerity, they massively opposed it. “This will be the same in France. “Of course, we need a referendum. “Knowing more about event choices should be part of a democratic debate within the population and a decision should be made through a referendum. “This is what I have defended each time at the Council of Paris. It would not be unprecedented for an Olympic host city to be changed following a referendum. Simonnet herself cited the example of the 1976 Winter Olympics, which were awarded to Innsbruck after Denver, the original host city, withdrew in 1972. In a statewide referendum, Colorado voters rejected funding for the Games, and for the only time a city awarded the event rejected them. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 10 - May 2019 Gamecock Alumna Kryst Wins Miss USA Competition https://gamecocksonline.com/news/2019/5/3/track-and-field-gamecock-alumnae-kryst-wins-miss-usa-competition.aspx RENO, Nev. -- University of South Carolina track & field alumna Cheslie “Ceci” Kryst won the 2019 Miss USA competition, held Thursday, May 2 at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno.

Kryst graduated cum laude from the Darla Moore School of Business in 2013 with a bachelor’s in marketing and human resources. She went on to Wake Forest University, where she earned both a JD and an MBA.

Kryst is now a civil litigation attorney at Poyner Spruill in Charlotte, N.C. She is licensed to practice law in both South Carolina and North Carolina.

“It was fun watching Ceci tell her story last night,” South Carolina head coach Curtis Frye said. “In college, she was a tremendously motivated person, and she motivated everyone around her. We have a slogan - ‘if it’s to be, it’s up to me.’ I’m so proud of our alumni who take that slogan and serve as forward thinkers and role models.”

“Ceci was the model student-athlete in every way,” said Carolina assistant head coach Delethea Quarles. “She was very disciplined, an extremely hard worker, diligent in the classroom and always willing to volunteer her time for community service projects.”

A four-year member of the track & field program, Kryst came to Carolina in 2010 after winning a county long jump title at Fort Mill High School in Fort Mill, S.C. With the Gamecocks, she competed in the long jump, triple jump and multi events.

Kryst still holds three marks on Carolina’s all-time top-10 records list. She is ranked ninth all-time in program history in the outdoor triple jump, 10th in the indoor triple jump and 10th in the heptathlon. She’s one of just two Gamecocks in history to score over 4,000 points in the heptathlon and triple jump over 40 feet.

“I’m always proud of our Gamecocks who go on to make an impact in the world, and it brings be an incredible amount of joy to watch Ceci succeed, not just as Miss USA but also as an attorney,” Quarles added. “She’s following her dreams and making it happen.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 11 - May 2019 IAAF letter to the World Medical Association Dear Doctor Leonid Eidelman, Dear Board Members of the World Medical Association,

Following a request from the South African Medical Association, The World Medical Association (WMA) has called twice on physicians around the world to take no part in implementing the IAAF Eligibility Regulations for the female classification (athletes with differences of sex development). We would like to bring the following points to your attention.

The DSD regulations only apply to individuals who are: • legally female (or intersex) and • who have one of a certain number of specified DSDs, which mean that they have: - male chromosomes (XY) not female chromosomes (XX) - testes not ovaries - circulating testosterone in the male range not the (much lower) female range - the ability to make use of that testosterone circulating within their bodies by having functional androgen receptors

The WMA President, Dr Leonid Eidelman, said: “We have strong reservations about the ethical validity of these regulations. They are based on weak evidence from a single study, which is currently being widely debated by the scientific community...” The IAAF Regulations in this matter are not based on a single study, but on many scientific publications and observations from the field during the last 15 years. All these materials were submitted to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and discussed during the hearing. The Panel has accepted the validity of this evidence and has recently decided to uphold the IAAF Regulations. In its statement, WMA added “It is in general considered as unethical for physicians to prescribe treatment for excessive endogenous testosterone if the condition is not recognized as pathological.” We respectfully remind the WMA that while doctors should try not to over-medicalise the lives of these patients, it is important to recognise that for an adolescent raised as female and experiencing a masculinising puberty, according to international guidelines for DSD, an extensive investigation should be carried out by a cross-professional team to reach a diagnosis, and to clarify the individual’s gender identity. It is also important to exclude a gonadal malignancy since some 46XY DSDs are associated with an increased risk of cancer. If the individual has a female gender identity, a suitable form of treatment is recommended to lower the testosterone level, provided the patient accepts it herself. In worldwide clinical practice, male gonads are often removed, but pharmacological treatments to reduce testosterone levels are also used. In 46XY DSD individuals, reducing serum testosterone to female levels by using a contraceptive pill (or other means) is the recognised standard of care for 46XY DSD athletes with a female gender identity. These medications are gender-affirming. Although not specified in the Regulations, professional psychological counseling to assist the individual with determining gender identity prior to recommending a treatment is also the standard of medical care for these conditions. In any case, it is the athlete’s right to decide (in consultation with their medical team) whether or not to proceed with any assessment and/or treatment. If she decides not to do so, she will not be entitled to compete in the female classification of any Restricted Event at an International Competition (see clauses 2.5 and 2.6 of the Regulations). However, she would still be entitled to compete:

• in the female classification: - at any competition that is not an International Competition: in any event, without restriction; and - at International Competitions: in any discipline other than track events between 400m and a mile; or • in the male classification: at any competition at any level, in any discipline, without restriction; or • in any ‘intersex’ (or similar) classification that the event organiser may offer at any competition at any level, in any discipline, without restriction. The CAS has upheld the IAAF Regulations, saying: “The Panel found that the DSD Regulations are discriminatory but that, on the basis of the evidence submitted by the parties, such discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the legitimate objective of ensuring fair competition in female athletics in certain events and protecting the “protected class” of female athletes in those events” (CAS executive summary available at: https://www.tas-cas.org/fr/informations-generales/detail-actualites/article/ semenya-asa-and-iaaf-executive-summary.html) Therefore, the IAAF strongly disagrees with the WMA reservations about the ethical validity of the IAAF Eligibility Regulations for the female classification. Furthermore, we respectfully request that the WMA circulates this response to all its members so they are aware of this information and can follow the recognised standard of care for 46XY DSD athletes with a female gender identity. The IAAF will endeavour to circulate this response to the broader community for the same reason.

Yours sincerely,

Pr Angelica Linden Hirschberg MD, PhD Chairwoman of the IAAF board of medical experts on DSD Professor of Gynaecology and Endocrinology Division of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Karolinska University Hospital, Solna, Sweden.

Pr Richard Auchus MD, PhD Professor of Pharmacology and Internal Medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology, and Diabetes. University of Michi- gan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.

Dr Stéphane Bermon MD, PhD Exercise Physiologist and Sports Physician. Director of the IAAF Health and Science Department. Monaco, Principality of Monaco TAFWA Newsletter - Page 12 - May 2019 Eastern Track League The Eastern Track League is an exciting new domestic race series geared towards middle distance runners who are targeting U.S Championships and IAAF World Championships qualifying standards.

Five east coast Middle distance Track & Field groups have teamed up to launch a new track league.

The Eastern Track League creates opportunities for athletes to chase qualifying standards for U.S. and World Championships and for track and field fans up and down the East Coast to witness thrilling middle distance races between some of the sport’s developing stars.

Competition kicks off Monday, May 13 at the Swarthmore Last Chance Meet in Pennsylvania. All the entries involved agreed that a domestic track league would negate the need to travel to Europe to race during a part of the calendar where, up until now, there has been a dearth of racing opportunities in the U.S.

“This Series allows the post-collegiate men and women in our club to compete in high quality, no frills competitions without the rigors of transatlantic or transcontinental travel during a key training times for us,” said Hoka NJNYTC Coach Frank Gagliano.

There will be 6 meets in the series, culminating in a League Final to be held in Washington, DC on Saturday July 13th, two weeks before the U.S Championships.

Monday May 13th Swarthmore Last Chance Meet | Swarthmore, PA (Swarthmore College) Score events: M & W 1500m

Friday May 17th Georgia Meet of Champions | Marietta, GA (Marietta HS) Scored events: M & W 800m

Friday May 31st-Saturday June 1st Music City Distance Carnival | Nashville, TN (Vanderbilt University) Scored events: M & W 800m, 1500m, 3000m S/C, 5000m

Thursday June 13th Adrian Martinez Classic | Concord, MA (Concord HS) Scored events: M & W 800m, 1500m, 5000m

Sunday June 30th Princeton Qualifier | Princeton, NJ (Princeton University) Scored events: M & W 800m, 1500m, 3000m S/C

SERIES FINAL Saturday July 13th DCRR Track Championships | Washington, DC (Paul Dunbar HS) Scored events: M & W 800m, 1500m, 3000m S/C

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 13 - May 2019 My First Sub-4 https://bringbackthemile.com/news/detail/my_first_sub_4 May 06, 1967 Oregon Duck runs “free” to match Bannister’s month, day and time for Norway’s first sub-4 minute Mile By Arne Kvalheim

I ran my first sub-4 minute Mile on Saturday, May 6, 1967. My time was 3:59.4. The day in May and the time correspond- ed with the first sub-4 Mile by Roger Bannister in 1954. It was a Norwegian record, and I was also the first Norwegian to run sub-4 (Arne Hamarsland recorded a 4:00.8 in 1959). The meet was the annual dual meet University of Oregon vs. rival Oregon State. The venue was the track stadium at OSU in Corvallis, Oregon. I finished second to my teammate and life- long friend Roscoe Divine who beat me with a couple of tens of a second. As both of us doubled back in the meet, Roscoe, if memory serves, to win the half mile, and myself to win the 2 Mile, I don’t think any of us ran as hard as we could except maybe for the last 200 meters in that particular Mile race. It was the first Mile that season when Oregon’s legendary coach Bill Bowerman let us run free. Up to then in all other races, we had to run the races as if they were a time trials, sometimes with a slow controlled first half. Other times with a slow second or third lap. Bill always came up with a new scheme. As we won anyway, he wanted us to use those early races to get ready for the real stuff: the big races later in the season. Most of us didn’t like it one bit. We wanted to run fast and hard. However, you did what Bill scripted. Hence, it was a relief to be allowed to run freely in that Oregon State meet. As we Ducks generally were much better trained than our competitors in the Pac-8 Conference, we won all Mile races in dual meets with sweeps even with those silly time trial looking races. Sometimes we were forced by Bowerman to hang back so far that we really had to “burn” the last half in order to win. We also had Wade Bell, Dave Wilborn and Jere van Dyck on the team, and we knew we could run well because we ran ¾ mile practice time trials in 2:54, but alas, we weren’t allowed to show that strength in meets until the OSU meet. Prior to coming to Oregon in the fall of 1966, I had only run the Mile once (4:07 in 1965). We ran metric distances in Europe. However, in the summer of 1966 I had run 1500 meters twice in 3:42, equal to a 4 minute Mile. Before coming to the U.S. and Oregon I didn’t really think too much about the sub-4 minute Mile. The Mile was to me just another race distance. However, coming to the U.S. and Oregon everyone interested in track and in Eugene, those are more than a few, talked about that sub-4 Mile. Consequently, I began to see the importance of achieving that goal as soon as possible, and the Oregon State meet was really the first opportunity. When I did it, I was more than pleased. Being the first Norwegian to do so, didn’t make me feel less happy. Even losing to Roscoe was tolerable. Of the race itself I don’t remember much, it wasn’t very fast in the beginning, and I had to push the pace the last 600 meters on the dirt track and Roscoe out-kicked me on the homestretch. A little interesting side note: Both Roscoe and I ran our best Miles later at storied Hayward Field in Eugene. Roscoe in 1970 running 3:56.3 and beating Steve Prefontaine, and in 1971, as a graduate student, I clocked a personal record 3:56.4, also besting Pre. These were two rare races that the legendary Pre was beaten at Hayward (NOTE: only three defeats overall, and all in the Mile). He didn’t like that a bit! However, Roscoe and I enjoyed it even though Pre wasn’t a Miler. Someone had to put the “Kid” down a little. Later in life I think back on those days at the Oregon track team, Bill Bowerman and a wonderful bunch of good training partners and beer drinking comrades with great pleasure. I have been lucky later in life, good health, nice family and rewarding professional challenges. However, I think my days at the Oregon track team are maybe the highlight in my life. Bill Bowerman made such an impact on all of us, and not only athletically. All the best to all Mile fans.

Greetings from Oslo, Arne Kvalheim

EDITOR’S NOTE: Arne Kvalheim, a 1968 Norwegian Olympian, holds many honors including 11-time national champion and a member of the 4 x Mile world record relay team (16:05.0 in 1968) and University of Oregon’s Athletic Hall of Fame (Class of 2007).

In addition, his younger brother Knut also broke 4 minutes, and together, the pair are the 12th fastest sub-4 brother combination by average: Arne Kvalheim (3:56.4) and Knut Kvalheim (3:56.2) = 3:56.3. Arne also recorded 5 sub-4s in his racing career. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 14 - May 2019 San Jose State Loses Historic Track to Make Way for Parking http://www.ktvu.com/news/ktvu-local-news/san-jose-state-loses-historic-track-to-make-way-for-parking SAN JOSE, Calif. (KTVU) - A historic track where two of new plan revealed Wednesday is to pave over the track and San Jose State’s most famous Olympians trained will soon build a parking garage. be no more. The university said Bud Winter Field on the “Yes, there were plans to see if a new track could be South Campus will be turned into a new parking garage. installed,” said San Jose State Athletics Media Relations San Jose State has a long and celebrated history of track Director Lawrence Fan. “But the greater need for San Jose and field. The track on 10th Street and Alma Avenue is part State and San Jose State Athletics is a multi-level parking of the Speed City era from the 1960s to ‘80s when athletes structure.” shined. Fan said South Campus is evolving and with the univer- “There were people from all over the country that came sity being a commuter campus, with 45,000 people on any and gathered to work out at San Jose State’s track,” said given day, there’s just not enough parking. The new garage Downtown College Prep Track & Field Coach Rich Read. will accommodate 1,500 cars. San Jose State’s most famous athletes John Carlos and “It’s a big shame to see it go, a chunk of my heart out Tommie Smith practiced to prepare for the 1968 Mexico the door,” said Read. “That moment in history you feel it’s City Olympic games, where the Black Power salute to pro- almost going to get lost, even though it happened and you test racism made history. have it recorded it just feels like it will disappear.” Five decades later, it’s a track- widely used by the commu- “We are going to do everything we can to preserve the nity where young athletes draw inspiration. history of what’s taken place as it pertains to San Jose “It has a lot of meaning to me,” Paulo Orozco, a 16-year- State’s track and field,” said Fan. old long distance runner. “I always think of how these Both men’s and women’s track and field programs will people ran here, these really hardworking people.” remain. Practices are held at San Jose City College and the The university had planned to create a new practice facil- university doesn’t host any meets. The new garage could be ity, but San Jose State is growing and needs parking. The built this summer and opened 18 months later.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 15 - May 2019 OTC Elite Heads to Flagstaff for Altitude Training https://www.otcelite.com/single-post/2019/04/05/OTC-Elite-heads-to-Flagstaff-for-altitude-training EUGENE, Ore. – Most years, Oregon Track Club Elite The physiological benefits of training at high altitude athletes migrate to the high desert climes of Flagstaff, Ariz., are the main reason OTC Elite comes to Flagstaff. As each for several weeks of altitude training. athlete gradually acclimates to the workouts, they acquire This year, 11 of the 14 athletes on the OTC Elite roster more red blood cells. This allows their blood to carry more are currently living and training in Flagstaff, along with oxygen and ultimately boosts their aerobic capacity. Those head coach Mark Rowland and team physiotherapist David benefits begin to show up when they return to competition Campbell. at sea level. The plan calls for each runner to descend to sea level at “We’re all going to be rolling on the track by the time we the appropriate time for their outdoor season opener. Until get back to Eugene,” Southerland said. “The hard work (in then, it’s a daily grind of running, lifting and recovering, Flagstaff) will only make things easier in the long run.” and it can be a grueling transition. “We’re getting fitter everyday so that helps you keep go- For some, like first-year pros Sabrina Southerland and ing,” Abda said. “Like they said, suffer now and win later.” Drew Piazza, it’s their first experience attempting workouts The high altitude camp at Flagstaff also provides other at 7,000 feet or higher. The effort has left them both gasp- advantages. Those who have participated in the past point ing for air. to an opportunity to build team camaraderie through the “This is my first time just being at altitude,” Southerland shared experience of living and training together in a tough said. “I’ve been struggling with my breathing on runs, but environment. coach Rowland has assured me that this is normal. I have to “I’m always excited to come to altitude training camp,” remember that it’s OK for me to slow down the pace a little said two-time Olympian Francine Niyonsaba, a native of bit.” Burundi. “It’s enjoyable when you have a group of training Added Piazza: “The hard part is adjusting to the altitude. partners. We live together, we go for groceries together, and Not only does it make our training difficult, but the lack of we build team morale together. My teammates even taught oxygen also seems to be affecting my sleep and hydration.” me how to cook. It’s fantastic!” For others, such as Olympian Ben Blankenship, who “It can be fun to go to a place for several weeks just to do has been coming to Flagstaff each spring for the past eight one thing – train,” Kipyego said. “And obviously, when you years, it’s like a second home. He views it as a place where get to be in the same house with the entire team you get to he can block out all distractions, remind himself of why he do things together that normally you wouldn’t have done loves the sport, and focus on getting as fit as possible. alone, like playing board games.” Still, even for veterans of multiple altitude camps, those It’s also a chance to discover new places. early days can be daunting. “I really enjoy being able to explore different parts of the “I would never describe Flagstaff as fun or rewarding,” world,” Hanna Green said. “It’s nice to change up the scen- Blankenship said. “It’s easy to get overwhelmed or exhaust- ery and try out new trails and places to run.” ed from over-training. You have to find the right balance Most of the OTC Elite crew will remain in Flagstaff between resting and working out, and that balance is critical through the month of April, with individual race plans to having the training work for you instead of against you.” determining when and where athletes will return to sea “Everything is hard,” said Harun Abda, now in his fifth level. In the meantime, the heightened focus on training is a camp with OTC Elite. “Even going up the stairs at 7,000 feet constant reminder of why they’re doing this. is harder than running a lap around the track at sea level … “The biggest reason I come to Flagstaff is to remind my- but at the end of the day, it’s all worth it.” self why I love this sport,” Blankenship said. “Every day can “That thin air makes every run harder,” added two-time be a challenge and it keeps the focus on what’s important. I Olympian Sally Kipyego, who is still in her native Kenya as do my best to be thoughtful and mindful in my every action she prepares for the Boston Marathon on April 15. “It also and decision. I also love the moment when you start to find takes longer to recover from workouts, so you have to be that edge of fitness – and how you have to adapt to that and extra careful.” handle it.”

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 16 - May 2019 What an Olympic Medalist, Homeless in Seattle, Wants You to Know By Scott Greenstone | Seattle Times | (excerpt of article, available through the following link) https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/olympic-medal-winning-cyclist-rebecca-twigg-is-homeless-in-seattle/ When Rebecca Twigg was 7, she rode a bike for the first about what to do next with their lives. She did not want to time. There were no training wheels, but Twigg took off like discuss mental health but feels it should be treated more she’d done it in a previous life. She fell only when she real- seriously in Washington. ized she didn’t know how to stop, and steered into a wall. “Some of the hard days are really painful when you’re “I took to the road like I was born to do it,” Twigg says training for racing,” Twigg said, “but being homeless, when today. “Except for the little part about stopping. I’m not a you have little hope or knowledge of where the finish line is very good planner.” going to be, is just as hard.” The Seattle-raised athlete went on to become one of the On a recent morning, Twigg walked into Mary’s Place most famous American cyclists in the ’80s and ’90s, winning Women’s Day Center in downtown Seattle. She used to six world championships and medaling in two Olympics. come here frequently after leaving one of a number of night She appeared on cycling magazine covers, in sponsor ads shelters. Lots of women are here, taking showers or doing and in features in Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair. laundry, helping to clean. Talking with them is better than The Seattle Times’ Project Homeless is funded by BECU, “getting lost in my own thoughts,” she says. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Campion Foundation, Hedwight Amoda, director at the center, walks up. the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Raikes Foundation, “I haven’t seen you in a minute! Where are you?” Amoda Schultz Family Foundation, Seattle Foundation, Seattle asks. Mariners, Starbucks and the University of Washington. “On the living room floor,” Twigg says, smiling. “On a The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over Project mat.” She’s been staying with relatives in the area the last Homeless content. few weeks while she recovers from a bad flu. Her immediate But then, in 1996, she left the team abruptly during the family in the Seattle area, including her 18-year-old daugh- Olympics and the next year, retired from cycling. She re- ter, declined interviews for this story. entered the workforce. It didn’t work out. Amoda was struck, soon after meeting Twigg in 2017, by “Once you’ve done something that feels like you’re born how intelligent she was, how fit she looked in sports clothes to do it, it’s hard to find anything that’s that good of a fit,” and how late she stayed to clean after the day center closed. Twigg says today. “Anything else that feels that way.” When Amoda learned who Twigg was, she was surprised Rebecca Twigg has now been without a home for almost that this woman, regarded as America’s best cyclist when five years in Seattle, living first with friends and family, she quit in 1997, is homeless today. then in her car, then in homeless shelters and then, for a “I’m still confused, but I’m figuring it out,” Twigg tells night, under garbage bags on the street downtown. She Amoda. hasn’t had a bike for years, and no one recognizes her any- “I kind of lost my home base” more, she says. Twigg was still a child when she became homeless. Twigg, 56, agreed to share her story to convince the A prodigy in academics and athletics, she started at UW public that not all homeless people are addicted to drugs or at the age of 14, competing in cycling that same year and alcohol; that there are many like her, who have struggled medaling in national races almost right away. At this time, with employment and are “confused,” as she said she is, she was living in Seattle in a basement with her mother and

Rebecca Twigg, left, talks with Bobbie Jane Barber at the the Women’s Day Center at Mary’s Place in Seattle. Twigg, a two-time Olympic medalist and world-champion cyclist in the ’80s and ’90s, first became homeless at age 15. (Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times) TAFWA Newsletter - Page 17 - May 2019 sister. Twigg’s sister says their mom kicked Twigg out; Twigg remem- bers being offered the option to leave and taking it. She was a few months from turning 16. She rode her bike to the old downtown Greyhound station, stayed up all night, and slept a few hours in the UW Library the next morning before calling her team leader and crashing at his house. The next years — as Twigg became a cycling star — were transient. She went from friends’ houses to hotels on the road while racing. “I kind of lost my home base because I traveled so much,” Twigg said. She was spotted at 17 by famous cycling coach Eddie Bory- sewicz. After she won the world Rebecca Twigg flashes a winning smile after capturing the gold medal in pursuit racing at Mary- championship, he invited her to moor Park in the 1986 National Finals. (Jimi Lott / Seattle Times archives) live in the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and Entering the workforce is hard for anyone that’s been a train for the 1984 Olympic Games, where for the first time, famous athlete, but it can be especially hard for superstar women would be competing on bicycles. cyclists like Twigg, Thompson said. Americans dominated the Olympics that year. Twigg won “As a racer, you’re used to having a schedule kind of rotate a silver medal, missing gold by a few inches to famous racer around you,” Thompson said, “because you can’t overtrain, Connie Carpenter. She continued on her way up over the you don’t want to under-train, and you’re able to say ‘I’m next several years, setting world records, winning world not doing that today, I’m doing this today.’ And Rebecca, titles, and racing more than 60 times a year. She became being so highly trained, and highly attuned, had the leeway known for her competition in individual pursuit, where two of making those calls.” cyclists start at the same time on opposite sides of the track Thompson herself has avoided working at a desk. Today, and each tries to catch the other. She’s still among the most- she owns a cattle ranch in Oregon, where she’s her own decorated athletes in pursuit. boss. Thompson jokes she’s “unemployable.” But the breakneck pace couldn’t continue forever. She “What (Twigg) has is a great trait,” Thompson said. “Un- was married and soon after divorced. She crashed in Texas, less you get into the workforce.” broke her thumb and got 13 stitches in her head. The follow- Twigg would take unspecified amounts of time off and ing year she felt burned out. She took a break at age 26, and sometimes be unreachable. Once, when she didn’t show up that year she grew an entire inch, possibly because her body to work for four days, her co-workers called the police for a no longer had to expend so much energy training. welfare check, according to a family member. Twigg got an associate degree in computer science and Sometimes there were miscommunications. When Twigg became a programmer for a seaweed-products company in got back to the office after the welfare check, her desk San Diego. phone didn’t work. Scared she was about to be fired, Twigg Twigg says the career wasn’t a perfect fit. She quit and quit. She later learned they hadn’t planned on firing her. started training for the 1992 Olympic Games, winning a Twigg didn’t have much money to fall back on. Even with bronze medal in the 3,000-meter pursuit after only nine sponsorships, at the height of her success, Twigg says she months of training. As she entered her 30s, she became didn’t make more than $50,000 a year. regarded as the best American female cyclist. Twigg said anxiety inhibited her job search. She would The break with her career came in July 1996, at the Olym- apply and get an email about an interview, but she wouldn’t pic Games in Atlanta. After a disappointing start to the respond. She started experiencing strange sensations in Games, she left, saying the U.S. Cycling Federation was pres- her head and body, but doctors didn’t have any answers. suring everyone to recreate the success of 1984. She raced She said she has considered suicide, but is convinced things in 1997, but placed eighth in the world championships. She don’t get better on “the other side.” retired for good. Five years ago, Twigg was fired from an IT support job From a bike to a desk and moved back to Seattle, but this time didn’t even apply Twigg went back to desk jobs in IT, then back to school for jobs. She was 50, and felt the job postings in computer for massage therapy. It didn’t pay enough, and she was science were aimed at new college graduates. offered another tech job. She married again, and had a She went from living with relatives to living in her car, daughter. letting her then-14-year-old daughter stay with relatives. It was a far cry from winning medals for Twigg, and Riding her bike no longer made sense to her, practically; she beyond that, she said the solitary nature of program- got sweaty if it was warm, or wet if it was raining, and stay- ming troubled her. She’d been friendly but introverted for ing clean and dry is hard when you’re homeless. much of her time traveling, according to fellow cyclist Inga She gave away her bike, her cycling taking a back seat Thompson, who traveled and competed alongside her for to surviving. She started walking everywhere, slowly, to years. conserve energy. TAFWA Newsletter - Page 18 - May 2019 Nike Told Me to Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted a Baby OPINION | The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/opinion/nike-maternity-leave.html VIDEO by Alysia Montaño - available here: the memory. “I’ll never forgive myself for that.” https://nyti.ms/2Yo4wuF Nike acknowledged in a statement that some of its sponsored athletes have had their sponsorship payments Many athletic apparel companies, including Nike, claim reduced because of pregnancies. But the company says it to elevate female athletes. A commercial released in Febru- changed its approach in 2018 so that athletes are no longer ary received widespread acclaim for spotlighting women at penalized. Nike declined to say if it wrote those changes all stages of their careers, from childhood to motherhood. into its contracts. On Mother’s Day this year, Nike released a video promoting According to a 2019 Nike track and field contract shared gender equality. with The Times, Nike can still reduce an athlete’s pay “for But that’s just advertising. any reason” if the athlete doesn’t meet a specific perfor- The economics of sports like track and field are different mance threshold, for example a top five world ranking. than those of professional sports like basketball or soccer. There are no exceptions for childbirth, pregnancy or mater- In track, athletes aren’t paid a salary by a league. Instead, nity. their income comes almost exclusively from sponsorship Most people who spoke to The Times requested anonym- deals inked with apparel companies like Nike and Asics. ity because they feared retribution, or had signed nondis- The best of the best can supplement that income with closure agreements, which may help explain why these prize money from winning races outright. But the major- arrangements have persisted. ity of athletes — who are often the breadwinners for their Many American laws protect the rights of pregnant families — sign exclusive five- or six-figure deals that keep employees — they can’t be fired, for instance. But, since them bound to a single company. professional athletes are more like independent contractors, For the vast majority of athletes, their sport is a way to those protections don’t apply. earn a decent living by doing what they love and excel at. When Alysia Montaño ran in the 2014 United States They don’t get rich. Championships while eight months pregnant, she was cel- Sports take a heavy toll on the human body, and sponsors ebrated as “the pregnant runner.” Privately, she had to fight accommodate this with time off for injuries. But rarely do with her sponsor to keep her paycheck. they offer enough time off to have a child. Sponsors do sometimes pay new mothers — Serena Wil- The four Nike executives who negotiate contracts for liams is branded as a famous example. But those who do get track and field athletes are all men. paid often have to beg for the money. “Getting pregnant is the kiss of death for a female ath- Ms. Goucher made more than a dozen unpaid appear- lete,” said Phoebe Wright, who was a runner sponsored by ances on behalf of Nike during her high-risk pregnancy. She Nike from 2010 through 2016. “There’s no way I’d tell Nike had to wait more than four months to disclose that she was if I were pregnant.” pregnant, so that Nike could announce it in The Times for More than a dozen track athletes, agents and others Mother’s Day. familiar with the business describe a multi-billion-dollar These kinds of pressures can lead to health complications. industry that praises women for having families in public — Ms. Goucher, for instance, has suffered from chronic hip but doesn’t guarantee them a salary during pregnancy and injuries ever since she raced the Boston Marathon seven early maternity. months after childbirth. For the Olympian Kara Goucher, the most difficult part “It took such a toll on me mentally and physically, for of motherhood wasn’t resuming training just a week after myself and for my child,” said Ms. Goucher. “Returning to childbirth in 2010. It wasn’t even when her doctor told her competition so quickly was a bad choice for me. And looking she must choose: run 120 miles each week or breast-feed back and knowing that I wasn’t the kind of mother that I her son. Her body couldn’t do both. want to be — it’s gut wrenching.” The toughest moment was when Ms. Goucher learned New mothers don’t just deal with their sponsors. Top that Nike would stop paying her until she started racing athletes receive health insurance from The United States again. But she was already pregnant. So, she scheduled a Olympic Committee and U.S.A. Track & Field. But that half-marathon three months after she had her son, Colt. insurance can vanish if women don’t place in the top tier of Then her son got dangerously ill. Ms. Goucher had to choose the nation’s most competitive races. Ms. Goucher and Ms. again: be with her son or prepare for the race that she hoped Montaño both lost their health insurance because they were would restart her pay. unable to compete at that level while having their children. She kept training. “I felt like I had to leave him in the “Some people think women are racing pregnant for hospital, just to get out there and run, instead of being with themselves,” said Ms. Wright. “It sometimes is, but it’s also him like a normal mom would,” Ms. Goucher said, crying at because there’s a baby to feed.” TAFWA Newsletter - Page 19 - May 2019 We Lost Another New York Sports Media Character This Week; Robert Elkin By Joe Favorito | http://joefavorito.com/2019/04/06/we-lost-another-new-york-sports-media-character- this-week-robert-elkin/ If you have spent any time around a locker room in New York in the past 40 years you knew who Robert Elkin was. Robert was a Zelig-like character, covering everything from boxing, where he once had a very unintentional and almost comical exchange with Mike Tyson during the boxer’s heyday, to high school track and field meets. He wrote, and always produced clips, from everything from News World to the Long Island Tribune to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and any series of weekly, monthly or yearly paper one could find in a supermar- ket. If there was a small newspaper in Syosset that wanted World Team Tennis stories, Robert was the guy. Now he was not a snappy dresser, or one with a quick wit or a particular writing style. If you saw Robert, sometimes people would go the other way. He was quiet, slim with Coke bottle glasses and always a crewcut. And the outfits; aviator caps, tweed jackets, raincoats, Converse sneakers; Robert was always one who was easy to spot. He stuttered a bit and had this high pitched voice that made him the brunt of jokes. And there were always the rumors…he was a flasher, he lived in a house that looked like one the Adams Family lived in, he was independently wealthy, he had a nervous breakdown when he was a kid and on and on…few people knew for sure because in a business of storytelling, few people ever talked to Robert. Most just pushed him aside, but he always came back and he always showed up and he was never, ever disre- spectful to anyone. In all these years I never ever even heard him raise his voice. Most importantly he always…showed…up. You had a half marathon press event in Central Park. Robert was there. A Knicks press conference. There was Robert. An oyster eating contest at South Street Seaport, Robert had his notebook. You never had to worry about having a press conference or any media event with an empty room, Robert Elkin always found his way there, and he always asked questions. Sometimes at events like women’s golf or tennis, it became a little awkward, with this socially challenged middle aged guy asking Ashley Harkelroad about her serve, but he was there to write a story, and write he did. And he always produced clips; always. There are so many people we have accumulated over the years who are just there for the free lunch, literally. Robert always justified the reason for coming, and for those whose events were small and screaming for coverage, he was the guy. I first met Robert when I was in high school in Brooklyn. He and another sports lifer, Burt Beagle, yes that was Burt’s real name, were always there covering high school basketball, baseball, track meets, whatever it was. Burt was the official statistician for the Catholic High School Athletic Association, and Robert was always somewhere nearby. Always showing up. That continued throughout my career. Any time there was an event in new York, there was Robert Elkin. The “always showing up” thing was also a phenomenon into itself. Robert you see, didn’t drive, and he did live most of his life in the town of Long Beach on Long Island. So he was always taking subways , busses, and part of the Elkin lore; would always ask someone for a ride home late at night, or at least to a bus station. Tom Dewey, the longtime track coach at Nazareth High School and Fordham University, was one of those kind souls who took some pity on Robert, and would always give him a ride after a day of covering meets at fields far and wide. He would sit quietly and then get out and continue on, travelling at all hours of the night and getting the stories done for the little papers and outlets who, we always hoped, would pay him for his work. No one was ever sure. Then there were the phone calls. Robert was the oldest of old school. Never had access to a fax machine and for the most part, did not have a cell phone and only recently started to have email. So he would call and ask for results or followup questions and somehow he found a way to get your home phone, which for many, was a source of annoyance. If it was the New York Times or Sports Illustrated calling, great. But annoying Robert Elkin, who you had to answer the same question about a location five or six times…enough already. Trust me, those calls were never easy and rarely welcomed, but here was a guy doing his job. That is what Robert did. His job. In a city of millions in a high profile business like sports and entertainment, it is very easy to forget the little guys or gals. They blend into the woodwork and like many who keep the city moving with their roles no matter how small, are swept away like so many grains of sand in the rising tide, replaced by others. However for such a slight person, not working for a major outlet, Rob- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 20 - May 2019 ert was hard to miss. His look was unique, certainly bordering on bizarre and even comical some times, and he was always there, part of the media horde at the big events, solitarily asking questions at the small ones. And it was his look, much more than his work, that even athletes and coaches always noticed. Larry Johnson, Patrick Ewing, John McEnroe, Rulon Gardner, Stephon Marbury, Serena Williams all knew of Robert. Most looked at him quizzically, some joked about his appearance, but all remembered him. Marbury used to call him “the weird dude with the propeller hat,” a reference to the hat with the ear flaps Elkin often wore. I mentioned a Tyson incident at the top of the post. Legend has it that Robert was at a Tyson press conference in New York and attempted to ask the champ a question. The mercurial boxer snapped back at the curious looking scribe and berated him, almost coming to blows while Robert sat there in stunned and embarrassed silence. No one came to his aid, some laughed, the legend created, and the presser moved on. He returned to the blend of the wood. Back to his seat to show up another day, taking buses and subways to hotel ballrooms, or the Armory or some high school in Queens, depending on the day. One person who remembered Elkin, and they made for a curious pair, was Hall of Fame basketball coach Larry Brown. While few knew of Elkin’s upbringing in Long Beach, Brown knew him; they went to high school together. At one of Coach Brown’s media sessions when he was head coach of the Knicks he went out of his way to stop and talk with Robert while the other beat writers stood off to the side, two sports lifers whose paths had taken different courses, reunited in the bowels of Madison Square Garden. Coach Brown called Robert, actually called him “Bobby” “a quiet kid who loved sports,” and remarked that he hadn’t changed a bit, something, at least in appearance was probably true. In the last few years Robert’s presence became less and less. There were all kinds of stories; the money his parents had left him had run out and he lost the house; he had gotten sick and dementia had set in; he was homeless; he was in a nursing home. Joe McDonald, the publisher of New York Sports Day (and another of those unique New York media characters) would share occasional accurate updates. It turned out Rob- ert was in a senior living facility (no one short of Larry Brown ever asked or knew his age, he was just always there) and health issues had taken over. This year he was not at the U.S. Open, and hadn’t been seen at any of the usual places…track meets, wrestling, various and sundry press conferences…where he was always a regular. However there was one unique Robert sighting that really encapsulated his Zelig-like life. Last fall at the US Open, my colleague Randy Walker and I were looking at a series of photos from the 1970’s telling the story of the great Arthur Ashe, his trailblazing past, and his path to success as an activist and tennis star. There in one of the photos, in the cramped press room of the former home of the Open, The West Side Tennis Club, was Robert. As Ashe held court with various and sundry media types, a young Mr. Elkin, glasses, slight buck teeth, jacket and tie, was standing there listening. He would only be noticed by people who knew him, and maybe he snuck in a question to the recently crowned star of tennis that day, no one will know, but he was recognized; his look and his presence captured for eternity. It was with a bit of sadness that we found out from Joe McDonald that Robert passed away from pneumonia this week. I doubt many would have visited him; no one knows if he even had family left, and pictures, let alone information about him, was scarce as of today. The funeral according to one report is in Clifton, New Jersey, a place Robert would have had a heck of a time getting to do during his driver’s license-less life, and it also adds to the mystery. When I mentioned on Thursday night to several media types at the New York Jets uniform unveil, an event Robert would not have missed, the reaction was surprisingly the same; sadness. With all his quirks, his peccadillos, Robert Elkin, in his own way, was a member of the New York media fraternity. Not always a welcome member, but a member nonetheless. He was never sarcas- tic, or mean, he was just happy to be there, covering events and telling stories big and small. He never really bothered anyone, and the urban legends surrounding his life were just that; like so many in New York, few asked, and he didn’t tell. I wouldn’t ever call him a friend per se, but I always appreciated that he showed up and was willing to do what he could do in his own way, with his own style. Many may say he was a pain, a weird little piece of New York that won’t be missed. I will say he was a unique character, and I’m sad that in the homogenous media world we are now in that characters like Robert Elkin are more and more scarce. He did his job and probably loved what he did, even with the scathing criticism and belittling. I always thought there should have been a “tales of New York” story about him, and now he is gone. Thanks Robert for being around. I think I appreciated you more later in my career than I did when you were on the edges of events in high school and college. Your life was noticed, not just by me but by many others, and although I don’t know if you will be really missed, you will be remembered, and that’s probably what would make you smile that crooked smile one more time.

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 21 - May 2019 The Olympic Marathon Trials Are (Still) In Jeopardy — Here’s What USATF & the IAAF Can Do to Fix It https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/05/the-olympic-marathon-trials-are-still-in-jeopardy-heres-what-usatf- the-iaaf-can-do-to-fix-it/ The significance of the greatest marathon in the United a trials with 10 or more competitors at sub-2:15 for the States is in jeopardy. men and sub-2:33 for the women (within 3:30 of the auto Held every four years, the US Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying standard) will result in the top three finishers represent all that is great about our sport. All of America’s at those trials being given the auto standard if they don’t best gather in one place on one day to race and try to reach already have it. the pinnacle of our sport — the Olympic Games. Finish in That is fair, universal, and it would protect the greatness the top three and you go to the Olympics. Finish outside of of the Olympic Marathon Trials. the top three and your Olympic dream waits another four USATF may be meeting with the IAAF to try to work out years. a solution, but we don’t think either party understands how The simplicity and cruelty of the Olympic Marathon central to the distance running community the Olympic Trials is why it is the pre-eminent marathon in the United Marathon Trials are in America. So they could use some States. Boston, Chicago, and New York may be World Mara- encouragement. We want others in the running community thon Majors, but when it comes to the hearts and minds to pick up this own issue and publish their own articles. of the running public, the Olympic Marathon Trials are #1. Millions of runners dream of the Olympics, thousands *************** throughout America train for the Trials, hundreds qualify Where things stand for it, and then only the top three make the team. Spring marathon season is over. The 2020 US Olympic The Olympic dream spreads throughout America because Marathon Trials are nine months away. It’s been more than of the Trials. It’s the foundation of elite distance running in two months since the IAAF changed its Olympic qualifying the United States. There’s a reason the Marathon Trials are process in the midst of the qualifying window. And we still the only American marathon broadcast live on network TV: don’t know how USATF will be selecting its marathon team it’s the most compelling marathon in the United States. for the 2020 Olympic Games. Now all of that is in jeopardy unless the IAAF (the world Whatever USATF decides will have a major impact on track governing body) and USATF (USA Track & Field) make the 160 men and 302 women currently qualified for the some common sense changes to the Olympic qualifying Trials. Right now, USATF is still deciding how it will pick its procedures. team, and the final decision may not come for another two Long story short, last year Atlanta was awarded the 2020 months — at which point, many athletes will be well into Olympic Trials, which will be contested on February 29, their fall marathon preparations. 2020. After Atlanta designed a hilly, difficult course and “The USATF LDR committee continues work on 2020 agreed to spend over $1 million to host the Trials, the IAAF Olympic Qualifying procedures for the men’s & women’s announced it was changing its Olympic qualifying proce- marathons, and we anticipate they’ll be final before the dures with the goal of promoting riveting head-to-head Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships (July 25-28),” US- competition. While the details of these changes are a little ATF managing director of communications Susan Hazzard complicated, there is no doubt America will still send three wrote to LetsRun in an email last week. runners of both genders to the Olympics in the marathon This is a critical moment for USATF and for the athletes it under the new system. Ironically, however, the unintended serves. Make the right choice, and February’s Marathon Tri- result may be that it is far from guaranteed that someone als in Atlanta have a chance to be exactly what they should who finishes in the top three in Atlanta will make the Olym- be: the fairest and most exciting way to pick an Olympic pic team, because of the way USATF is responding to these team. Make the wrong choice, and the Olympic dreams of changes. So instead of promoting head-to-head competi- hundreds of athletes could die before a gun is fired. tion, the IAAF may be killing it off. How we got here That is terrible and needs to change. Furthermore, it’s In March, the IAAF announced the qualification system contrary to the IAAF’s stated goals of its new ranking sys- for the 2020 Olympics, a deviation from years past. In 2016, tem. Here’s what IAAF president Sebastian Coe said when the entry standards for the Olympic marathon were emi- the IAAF announced the world rankings in 2017: nently attainable: 2:19:00 for the men and 2:45:00 for the “For the first time in the sport’s history, athletes, media women. The Olympic standards were such that anyone who and fans will have a clear understanding of the hierarchy of entered the US Trials could reasonably expect to hit them, competitions from national through to area and up to global and the best part of the Trials — top three make the team events, allowing them to follow a logical season-long path to — was never in jeopardy. the pinnacle of athletics’ top two competitions.” The new Olympic qualification system is different. Under Under the old Trials format, the hierarchy and logical pressure from the IOC to limit the number of athletes in path was very easy to understand for US fans, Olympic Tri- track & field, the IAAF has significantly trimmed the size als then Olympics. American fans had a clear understanding of the Olympic marathons. There were 155 men and 156 of how it worked. The new format could feature an illogical women in the 2016 Olympic marathons; the IAAF is aiming path (top three don’t automatically make the Olympics), for 80 men and 80 women in 2020. In addition, the IAAF making it difficult for fans to understand. has introduced a new world ranking system and wants to Furthermore, the changes to the Trials would severely make use of it in the Olympic qualifying process. dampen the mystique and dream of the Trials, and could The result? The automatic Olympic entry standards of eventually lead to the extinction of the Trials. A simple 2:11:30 (men) and 2:29:30 (women) got significantly harder solution is for the IAAF to say that any country that holds (athletes can also qualify by finishing top 10 in a World TAFWA Newsletter - Page 22 - May 2019 Marathon Major or top 5 in an IAAF Gold Label Marathon 2:11:30 in Atlanta. But there’s a good chance someone will in 2019 or 2020). run slower than 2:11:30 and still finish in the top three, just Should USATF stick to the model it has used in past as in 2016 when Meb Keflezighi was second in 2:12:21 and Olympic Trials and USATF championships — top three Ward third in 2:13:00 in sunny Los Angeles. USATF needs finishers with the Olympic standard make the team — the to be doing everything in its power to make sure that it consequences could be dire. This is the scenario we were preserves the integrity of the Trials and sends the top three worried about in the beginning of this article because finishers to the Olympics. it’s the qualification system USATF told LetsRun.com it And if Rupp, Fauble, and Ward are the only other guys would use back in March. Multiple sources disputed that with the standard, what’s the point of even running the with LetsRun, telling us that USATF had yet to determine race? If that’s the case, and USATF picks the top three its qualification system; USATF has repeatedly refused to finishers at the Trials with the standard, Fauble and Ward clarify whether or not that system will be used. could finish 96th and 97th and still go to Tokyo. That will At the very least, USATF is considering sticking with the kill the Trials as organizations like the Atlanta Track Club “top three with the standard” model. That much is clear will have no desire to spend over $1 million on a largely from Hazzard’s comments. Hazzard’s initial statement on meaningless race. behalf of USATF to LetsRun.com in March contained the We can’t say for sure how many guys will enter the Trials following line: with the standard, but if it’s three or four or five or six, the “Over the years, the standards for all national and Trials will become a three- or four- or five- or six-man race. international championships increased in difficulty for all And that’s not what the Olympic Trials are about. competitors, and athletes have risen to the challenge time The problem is less pronounced on the women’s side, and time again.” where eight Americans already have the Olympic standard. In Hazzard’s most recent email on May 9, she again sug- But there could still be issues. Notably, two of the three gested that USATF believes that enough American athletes members of the 2016 Olympic team don’t have the stan- will hit the Olympic standard that it won’t cause a problem dard: Amy Cragg hasn’t raced a marathon since February at the Olympic Trials. 2018 and her fall plans remain unknown; Shalane Flanagan “We strongly believe our athletes will continue to meet just underwent knee surgery, which makes it unlikely that the standards as they’ve shown in the first few weeks of the she’ll run a marathon this fall. (It’s not totally clear whether marathon season,” Hazzard wrote. the 2020 Trials are in Flanagan’s plans, but it’s notable that But the fact is, the new standards could be a big problem she has not announced her retirement as of yet). if USATF decides to go with a “top three with the standard” There’s a good chance that the top three in Atlanta all hit model. As things stand, we could have a men’s race at the the 2:29:30 standard during the race, but it’s not a guar- Trials in which only a handful of men have the standard, antee. Only three women broke 2:30 at the 2016 Trials, with little chance of others getting it on the day. Only three with Flanagan third in 2:29:19. If it’s a hot day in Atlanta, Americans have broken 2:11:30 since the start of 2017 (and someone could run 2:29:45 on that hilly course and take two of them have the standard already), the course is hilly, third. What if that person is a 38-year-old Flanagan, a the weather in Atlanta unpredictable. legend of the sport bouncing back from knee surgery, only Currently, Scott Fauble and Jared Ward are the only to be denied a spot on her fifth Olympic team because she American men with the 2020 Olympic standard, by virtue doesn’t have the Olympic standard? That’s a scenario no one of their top-10 finishes in last month’s Boston Marathon. wants to see. Galen Rupp will almost certainly pick it up in Chicago this And the frustrating thing is, USATF doesn’t have to go fall. Beyond that? There are no certainties. But it’s unlikely the “top three with the standard” route. The IAAF specifi- that we’ll see a bevy of American men picking up the stan- cally stated that the new Olympic qualification system is dard this fall. designed to generate roughly 50% of qualifiers via the entry Let’s use the fall of 2018 as an example. Had the Olympic standards and 50% via its world rankings. That system qualifying window been open at the time (it didn’t open makes it far easier for Americans to earn a bid; per the pro- until 1/1/2019), five Americans would have picked up the jections of friend of LetsRun Brendan O’Neill, nine Ameri- standard last fall — Fauble, Ward, Rupp, Shadrack Biwott can men and 20 American women would be in position to (9th in New York), and Chris Derrick (10th in New York). earn an Olympic berth based on their world rankings, and Maybe five Americans get the standard this fall. Fauble that’s before factoring in the performance bump from a top- and Ward already have it, of course, but maybe Rupp, Bi- 3 finish at the US Olympic Trials, which would be enough to wott, Derrick, and a couple of others get it. Maybe Chicago put almost every athlete in position to earn a bid. If USATF and New York take more Americans and fewer international goes with a “top three with the standard” model, it would be runners than usual so the Americans have a better shot to slamming shut the door the IAAF left open for federations get the Olympic standard with a top-10 finish. Even if five to send worthy athletes who have not hit the significantly guys get it this fall, that still leaves only seven men — out tougher Olympic standards. of 160 OT qualifiers — with a realistic shot at making the team under the “top three with the standard model.” Remainder of article available through link available But what if it’s worse than that? What if someone like on previous page. Biwott, who finished 4th and 3rd in Boston in 2017 and 2018, gets hurt and can’t race a fall marathon? What if the top Americans pass up New York since it’s less than four months before the Olympic Trials? What if Rupp is the only other guy to get the standard this fall? Or what if, heaven forbid, Rupp suffers a setback in his recovery from his Achil- les surgery and has to withdraw from Chicago, forcing him to go into the Trials without the standard as well? Rupp is good enough that he could probably solo a sub- TAFWA Newsletter - Page 23 - May 2019 Partial Fixtures List 2019 May 23-25 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Rounds, Jacksonville, Florida NCAA Division I West Preliminary Rounds, Sacramento, California NCAA Division II Championships, Kingsville, Texas NCAA Division III Championships, Geneva, Ohio June 5-8 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, Austin, Texas June 21-23 USATF U20 Outdoor Championships, Miramar, Florida June 23-28 European Games, Minsk, Belarus June 30 Prefontaine Classic, Stanford, California July 25-28 USATF Championships, Des Moines, Iowa Aug. 6-10 Pan-American Games, Lima, Peru (tentative dates for track and field) Aug. 9-11 European Team Championships, Bydgoszcz, Poland Sept. 9-10 Europe vs. USA, Minsk, Belarus Sept. 27-Oct. 6 IAAF World Championships, Doha, Qatar Nov. 3 New York City Marathon Nov. 23 NCAA Division I Cross Country, Terre Haute, Indiana NCAA Division II Cross Country, Sacramento, California NCAA Division III Cross Country, Louisville, Kentucky

2020 Feb. 29 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Marathon, Atlanta, Georgia March 13-14 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, Albuquerque, New Mexico NCAA Divsion II Indoor Championships, Birmingham, Alabama NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, Geneva, Ohio May 21-23 NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships, Kingsville, Texas NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, Rochester, New York May 28-30 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Rounds, Lexington, Kentucky NCAA Division I West Preliminary Rounds, Lawrence, Kansas June 10-13 NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, Austin, Texas June TBA USATF U20 Outdoor Championships, Miramar, Florida June 19-28 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field, Eugene, Oregon July 7-12 IAAF World U20 Championships, Nairobi, Kenya July 24 - Aug 9 Olympic Games, Tokyo, Japan (Track & Field dates: July 31 - August 8) Nov. 21 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, Stillwater, Oklahoma NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships, Evansville, Indiana NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2021 Aug. 6-15 IAAF World Championships, Eugene, Oregon

TAFWA Newsletter - Page 24 - May 2019