Caster Semenya's right to a fair hearing was violated, ECHR rules
She was unsuccessful in challenging World Athletics' rules at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the Swiss federal court, but in July 2023 a lower chamber of the ECHR found her rights had been violated by the Swiss government because it had failed to provide sufficient safeguards for her complaint to be examined effectively.
Grand Chamber judgment Semenya v. Switzerland – Complaint by international athlete concerning set of World Athletics regulationshttps://t.co/JcWLWspX33#ECHR #CEDH #ECHRpress pic.twitter.com/6hFqJzTpgv
— ECHR CEDH (@ECHR_CEDH) July 10, 2025
The Swiss government referred the case to the ECHR's Grand Chamber in November 2023 and on Thursday morning, it was announced its judges had found by a 15 to two majority that Semenya's rights under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights – the right to a fair hearing – had been violated.
A press release issued by the court said the judges had found the Swiss courts had 'fallen short' in providing what they felt should have been a 'rigorous judicial review that was commensurate with the seriousness of the personal rights at issue'.
The ECHR ruling, which cannot be appealed, should mean the case returns to the Swiss federal court.
The Grand Chamber ruled by a majority of 13 to four that complaints under Article 8 (right to respect for private life), Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) were inadmissible. It found Semenya did not fall within Switzerland's jurisdiction in respect of those complaints.
Seema Patel, an associate professor specialising in sports law at the Nottingham Law School, had said prior to the Semenya decision being handed down that it would be a 'pivotal moment for how sport engages with human rights in its rule making'.
World Athletics has not been a party to either of the ECHR proceedings but at the time of the 2023 ruling by the lower chamber it said it stood by its rules on lowering testosterone, describing them as 'a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category'.
Caster Semenya was a gold medal winner in the women's 800m at the 2016 Rio Olympics, having also won the same event at London 2012 (Martin Rickett/PA)
Earlier this year, track and field's global governing body strengthened its rules in this area further when its ruling council approved the introduction of cheek swab tests to determine biological sex.
The introduction of these tests are designed to ensure only athletes found to be biologically female can compete in the female category, effectively barring transgender women and some athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD).
Semenya's legal team and World Athletics have been contacted for comment following the Grand Chamber ruling.
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Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Team GB Olympic legend Sir Mo Farah says Qatar is safer for his children than living in London after making family move
Sir Mo Farah has said Qatar is safer for his family than living in London, after the Team GB legend recently made the move to the middle eastern nation. The four-time Olympic gold medallist, born in Somaliland and raised in Feltham as a refugee, has decided to move away from London with his young family. In 2010, the Farahs moved to Portland, Oregon, for seven years for Sir Mo's training. But now they have moved to Doha, which he said was to fully prioritise his children now that the runner has hung up his boots. It was a promise to his children, stepdaughter Rihanna, 20, and a recent graduate of the Brit School, twins Aisha and Amani, 12, and his son Hussein, nine, that they would now be the priority following his retirement. Sir Mo said the move has allowed his children to live their lives freely without the distractions that come with having a famous father. He told The Telegraph: 'It's a little bit challenging for them when they're with me and I'm getting recognised. I want them to be kids. [The move] is purely for my kids and their privacy for the time being. I'd never really stopped, so I wanted somewhere quiet where I could separate my work from family. And the kids are happy, that's the key thing.' The legend of London 2012 said Doha is 'much safer' than the city where he grew up. He added: 'My kids have signed up for a gym and they can go by themselves there. It's much safer than London. I started to worry, living in London, because you can educate your kids as much as you can, but if they get in the wrong place at the wrong time, you see a lot of stuff happening. That's a worry.' Qatar has become a popular destination for Londoners seeking to move away. However, while the Gulf state is seen as a neutral player in increasing tensions in the Middle East, Iranian missle strikes on a US military base in Qatar in June have caused some unease in the country. Sir Mo and his family were in Britain at the time of the strike, as they still maintain a house in Weybridge, Surrey. He said: 'It's scary of course, but it is for all of us around the world. You've got to take each day as it comes, and luckily it wasn't anywhere near where we live.' The family still plans on returning to Britain in the future and always wears a Union flag bracelet on his wrist. In 2022, Sir Mo sensationally revealed that he was trafficked into Britain and spent his early years here in domestic servitude. His father died in the civil war in Somalia when Mo, real name Adbi Khan, was just four years old. In 1993 he was illegally trafficked into the UK as an eight-year-old boy under a false passport bearing his new identity 'Mo Farah' – a name that had been stolen from another child. He was then forced carry out household chores for the family of the woman who brought him here. Sir Mo was enrolled in a tough junior school in the predominantly white area of Feltham, west London, where his refusal to be cowed meant he was forever getting into fights. He confided in his PE teacher Alan Watkinson, who alerted social services to his situation. He was then put in contact with social services and moved in with a schoolfriend's mother, Kinsi. Finally happy and cared for, he remained there for the next seven years. The teacher who came to Sir Mo's rescue also helped him to get UK citizenship. His athletic talent began to shine through and in 2011 he burst onto the scene with a gold medal in the 5,000m at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. Undoubtedly his most memorable triumphs cam just a year later when Farah won two golds in the 10,000m and 5,000m on home soil during London 2012, when his famous 'Mobot' gesture first graced television screens. He became part of 'Super Saturday' which saw three Brits win gold in the Olympic stadium, with Farah joining Heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill and long jumper Greg Rutherford. He then won double gold again at the World Championships in Moscow in 2013 and completed a double-defence of his Olympic titles in Rio in 2016. Sir Mo finished his hugely succesful career in middle distance running in 2017, in London again, with a Gold medal in the 10,000m and a silver in the 5,000m. He then turned his attention to the marathon distance in 2018, achieving a third placed finish in the London marathon. Away from running, Sir Mo has become a regular player in Soccer Aid each year and in 2012 also became the only British contestant to ever win The Cube game show, one of only eight winners worldwide.
Telegraph
10 hours ago
- Telegraph
Sir Mo Farah: ‘My children are much safer in Qatar than London'
Sir Mo Farah doesn't much like sitting still. 'No, I can't, I can't,' he says, bobbing a tracksuited leg up and down gently. I have managed to detain him in a changing room at a cricket pavilion in West London, and it may be the double espresso he's just emptied three white sugars into before downing, but even here – beside the glimmering Thames on an idyllic summer's day, with a baying mob of retirees eager to say hello on the café terrace outside – he cannot truly rest. He fiddles, he fidgets, he flails. 'I'm always moving. I've got an identical twin brother and he's the same, he became a mechanic because he's always got to be taking things apart,' Sir Mo says, baring that famous, near-permanent smile. 'It's maybe the reason why I was so successful. I have always been running from something. Running is the only place I felt comfortable, like I was myself.' Sir Mo has found himself running from a lot of things over the course of his extraordinary life. As a child born in present-day Somaliland, it was war. As a supposed refugee growing up in Feltham, west London, it was a bleak and brutal domestic situation. Later it would be accusations about the company he kept as an athlete. And for a long time – far longer than it should have been, he can now admit – it was the truth. But between all that, he mostly just ran away from the competition. Sir Mo is, without question, Britain's greatest ever track athlete. His achievement at the London 2012 Olympics, doing the long-distance double – gold in 5,000m and 10,000m – enshrined him in national legend. Doing it again four years later in Rio, a record equalled only by Finland's Lasse Virén, put him among the greatest distance athletes of all time 'I used to get a lot of criticism because I said I wasn't going after fast times, I was going after medals. But records are there to be broken,' he says. He got the medals – four Olympic golds, six world championship golds, five European championship golds – but for somebody who doesn't care about records, he doesn't do badly in that department either. As of today, he remains the British record holder for (deep breath) the 3,000m, two miles, 8km, 10,000m, 20,000m, one hour (21,330m), 14km, 15km, 18km, 20km (road), half marathon, 25km, 30km, 20 miles and, finally, the marathon. Until recently he had the 1,500m and 5,000m, too. He used to run 240km (149 miles) per week. Today, aged 42 and retired for two years, he barely manages 15km. 'About three runs, maybe 5k each… but just to clear my head,' he says. Dinner last night was a pizza ('Everything in moderation') but he's as slight as ever and, in full tangerine-orange Nike running kit, looks about 25, albeit with the energy of a toddler. 'Hi, hi, good morning!' he announced to a startled café as he bounced through earlier this morning. It was the cheerful confidence of a man asked to light up a lot of rooms, especially classrooms. Sir Mo's trademark on the track was to sit mid-pack and stay with the pace, however fast, until the final lap or two, at which point he'd hare off, knowing he could reach a sprint pace nobody on the planet could match after already running so far. Invariably he'd close 10,000m races with a sub-53-second 400m. Sit-and-kick, the tactic is called. Nobody did it better. He retired in September 2023. A year prior to that, when his career was entering its last year and his giddy time in the public eye was coming to an end, it turned out his story had a final incredible kick, too. In a shocking BBC documentary, The Real Mo Farah, he revealed that he was in fact born with the name Hussein Abdi Kahin. His mother had sent him away to Djibouti during the Somali Civil War, before he was trafficked to Britain at the age of nine by a woman he had never met, and then forced to work as a domestic servant. The woman gave him the name of her real son, Mohamed Farah, and forced him to cook, clean and care for her younger children. His real mother remained in Somalia, as did his twin brother and six other siblings. His real father was killed by a stray bullet during the civil war when Sir Mo was four. Until then, Sir Mo had told the British public that he, his mother and two of his siblings had come to Britain to live with his father, an IT consultant, in London. Even his wife, Tania, who met him at college, only found out just prior to their wedding in 2010. 'I didn't talk about it before because I didn't have the courage,' Sir Mo says today. 'I didn't want to admit it. And I wouldn't have been able to achieve what I have achieved.' Sir Mo rarely went to primary school, but attended Feltham Community College full-time. There, in year 7, aged 12, he told his PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, the truth about how he arrived in the UK. A few days later, social services removed him from the home he'd worked in servitude in, and his childhood began in earnest when he moved in with a family friend. 'I didn't have a childhood. Which is sad, but it's about what you do now,' he says. 'Years later I'd be daydreaming, watching my kids. They'd be nine, say, and I'd be thinking about what I was doing at nine. We have this nice house, nice car, but I [had been] sleeping in a tiny room with six people on a mattress.' At times, Tania would catch him lost in reverie and ask him what he was thinking about. When he told her, she urged him to get therapy, but Sir Mo resisted. 'Honestly, running was my therapy. I never went to see someone, but the best thing for me was to understand how it happened. If it wasn't for my wife, and seeing my kids, I'd never have done anything.' Sir Mo is still frequently in touch with Hassan, his identical twin brother, who remains in Somalia. Less so the rest of his family. In the film, the disparity in wealth when Farah is greeted in Somalia like a prodigal son, is stark. Did anybody we met in the documentary ask him for money? 'Of course. I'm not going to talk about it, but a lot of people did, because they felt like they've got a connection to me now.' Your nice life. 'Yeah, a nice car, a nice house…' And what of the other Mo Farah, the boy whose identity he was given when he was flown to the UK. A taciturn figure, he appeared briefly on a video call, with Farah promising to facilitate a visit to Britain. Are they in touch? 'No, I don't speak to him. I just wanted to know if he was OK, for my own mind. I wanted to see where he is, so to then be taken advantage of, him saying, 'I need this, I need this', it was hard. It was so difficult for me to deal with that. I was just like, I'm not his father, I'm not his parents…' He looks briefly despondent. I wonder if Sir Mo thinks there are still trafficked children locked in servitude in London. He nods. 'I think there's a lot of stuff going on. And the hardest thing was getting facts. I didn't even know what child trafficking meant until I saw a specialist and they told me, 'That's you, that's your case'. And people stay in these situations because they're scared. There are cultural differences, language barriers, and there are lots of things we can tackle.' Britain, he says, is still 'more welcoming than anywhere else to foreigners'. He drove to London this week from Paris, 'and you look at the streets there, with the homeless people. It was like, 'Wow'. My kids were asking me questions about it. But I'm proud to be British, this is a country where you can have an opportunity to create things […] Who would have thought, a boy from Feltham who was child-trafficked would be getting an honorary degree from Oxford University, a knighthood from the Queen…' This being said, Sir Mo and his family are temporarily living abroad again, 15 years after they moved to Portland, Oregon, for seven years for his training. After years of putting his career first, he told his children – stepdaughter Rihanna is 20, and a recent graduate of the Brit School, twins Aisha and Amani are 12, and his son Hussein is nine – he would fully prioritise them once he retired. As part of that, he made the decision to relocate the family to Qatar last year, in part to let his children get on with their lives without the distraction of their father's fame. 'It's a little bit challenging for them when they're with me and I'm getting recognised. I want them to be kids. [The move] is purely for my kids and their privacy for the time being. I'd never really stopped, so I wanted somewhere quiet where I could separate my work from family. And the kids are happy, that's the key thing.' The intention is to return to Britain, but at the moment he believes Qatar, specifically Doha, is 'much safer. My kids have signed up for a gym and they can go by themselves there. It's much safer than London. I started to worry, living in London, because you can educate your kids as much as you can, but if they get in the wrong place at the wrong time, you see a lot of stuff happening. That's a worry.' Qatar is seen as a neutral, key player in attempting to broker peace in the Middle East, but Iranian missile strikes on a US military base in the Gulf state in June threatened to change that. Sir Mo shakes his head. He and the family, who maintain a house in Weybridge, Surrey, were in Britain at the time. 'We were here, and at the moment it seems fine… It's scary of course, but it is for all of us around the world. You've got to take each day as it comes, and luckily it wasn't anywhere near where we live.' Despite the move, Sir Mo has far from abandoned Britain. He always wears the Union Flag bracelet he has on today, and feels 'very proud to be British, to have had the opportunity to have a life here and make the most of it. The best feeling is representing your country.' Some are surprised he's not become a coach, helping the next generation in British athletics. 'I've got my coaching licence, and it's something I'll do if I find the right project and the right thing to give back to.' Currently, though, his two projects are a new AI-powered coaching app, Urunn, and working as an ambassador for the Youth Sports Trust. 'My big mission is to get kids active, because physical education has been reduced far too much at school level since 2012. I'm trying to challenge the Government to put more money into sports and PE. It's about getting them moving, because from mental health to obesity, there's so much the Government could help [with].' Sir Mo's pressure contributed to the Government recently announcing a new national network to build partnerships between schools, local clubs and national governing bodies 'to identify and break down barriers to sport for children who are less active'. 'I've got four kids myself, it's not easy to get them moving. Clubs cost a lot, and I'm lucky I can support them.' Do his kids eat healthily? 'It's a challenge, I'm not going to lie. But it's a balance in our household. You can have a treat day, I don't mind, but you've to look after your body. So I educate them.' Sir Mo famously had two Big Macs and a strawberry milkshake at midnight after winning his 10,000m gold on Super Saturday. 'I never count calories, but I make sure it's balanced. Occasionally if I want sticky toffee pudding, I'm having a sticky toffee pudding.' I wonder what he makes of weight-loss jabs. 'I don't agree with it,' he responds instantly. 'It's just a shortcut. If my kids said they wanted to do that, I'd say 'No. Why?' You can do something, just get active, move more, cycle. For youngsters it's hard, because they just want an easy way out.' Arguably few people understand the wider societal benefits of sport quite like Sir Mo, who found safety, friends and purpose when Watkinson first put him on a running track 30 years ago. Many hoped that London 2012 would inspire (and fund) a new generation who would become brilliant track stars. The consensus is that the Games' legacy has been disappointing. 'A lot was promised, but how do we fulfil that? It's so easy to complain and go, 'This was promised, that was promised', but you've got to do something. We can start by getting kids active. We need to keep going with pressure,' Sir Mo says. 'It shouldn't tail off, because there's so much at stake. With living costs, it's hard times, but we can't forget the youngsters. Because if we forget them, what's going to happen? The crime rate will go up. If that goes up, we get a recession. So what do we need to do as a nation? We need to keep building ideas and knocking on the higher power. We have to invest in sport, not just for crime, but health.' Urunn, the app Farah has founded with his friend and former training partner Adam Clarke, is seizing on a moment when recreational running is booming. There are other apps that help coach people to personal bests – notably Runna, which was bought this year by tech giant Strava – but Urunn promises to go further with 'hyper-personalised' plans designed by Sir Mo and Clarke themselves. Currently, rival apps can be fairly rigid: here's your plan, off you go. Urunn, on the other hand, promises flexibility. Whether users are running to boost their mental health or to train for a marathon, Sir Mo says they will have a constant dialogue, and opportunity for people to connect with a wider running community. 'I'm not just the face of this, the investor; I'm the co-founder, this is our baby and I want to educate people through running. We won't just give people a programme you follow; we'll ask for feedback about how people feel, whether you have injuries, whether you're sleeping enough, what you want to change. We're constantly communicating.' It's often been said, but there is a lightness about Sir Mo in retirement. The pressure of competing is off, as are the questions about his career. In the final few years of his time as a runner, when he gave up the track and became a road marathoner (despite holding the British record and winning the Chicago Marathon, he doesn't consider that chapter a particular success), he was forever dogged by his association with the American coach Alberto Salazar. Once feted for his radical training techniques and repeated successes, Salazar received a four-year ban in 2019 for doping offences. Two years later, he received a lifetime ban from involvement in any Olympic or Paralympic sport for emotional and sexual misconduct. Farah, who never failed a drugs test, left Salazar's team in 2017. What he knew, and when, were the questions the press repeatedly asked him. 'It was frustrating, but regardless, I was part of it, I existed in that [training] group. At times it was very difficult, but as long as I was honest, deep down I knew I was never involved in that stuff.' Does he regret working with him? 'I wouldn't say I have regrets, but I would have loved to have known at the time, so I could have gone, 'I'm out'. That would have been the easiest thing, but the kind of man I am, I give people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it took far too long for that to happen, for me to know.' He still keeps a close eye on athletics, and launched the team-based RunGP league earlier this year to use F1 tracks for distance-running events. The 'super shoes' debate – whether ultra-advanced, ultra-fast carbon-plated trainers are making running too much about technology than talent – is futile, he thinks. 'It's technology. Every shoe company is on the same playing field now. And it's like your iPhone having extra battery. The shoes have just meant people can train harder than ever, so they're running faster times.' Of the current British talents, George Mills, the son of former England footballer Danny, who recently took his 5,000m record, has impressed him. So too Keely Hodgkinson, Josh Kerr and Georgia Bell. The great objective in distance running, though, remains the two-hour barrier for an official marathon in open competition. Sir Mo smiles. 'I think we might see the women's four-minute mile before we see the two-hour marathon.' In June, in a special Nike event, Kenyan Faith Kipyegon had a go at that, finishing in four minutes, six seconds. A new world record, but still a way off. 'I watched that, and thought things just didn't come together. They just need to calculate where's the best position on the track,' Sir Mo says. Ever the tactician, he then sets off explaining precisely how the pacemakers should have been running in order to maximise wind resistance and give Kipyegon a better shot next time. He really would make a good coach. He needs to move. Sir Mo will be in London for much of the summer, though not, as the tabloids have insisted, to start rehearsing for Strictly Come Dancing. 'No, put money on me not doing it. They've asked me a few times, but I can't dance,' he says, grinning. As he springs to his feet, lopes outside and twirls to greet the ever-increasing heat, it's difficult to believe it. Sir Mo Farah is now weightless. 'Right,' he announces, to no one in particular, 'let's go!'
Scotsman
13 hours ago
- Scotsman
TV star masquerades as tattoo artist as small-island Olympics kicks off in Scotland
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Lorraine Kelly has featured in a surprise video for a local tattoo parlour in Orkney as thousands of visitors from across the world descend on the Scottish archipelago for the much anticipated Island Games. In the video posted online, the Scottish TV presenter pretended to be a tattoo artist to promote the Kirkwall business, which has released a special collection of tattoo designs ahead of the event. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The TV star, who calls Orkney her 'happy place' and visits every year, is an ambassador for the 20th edition of the games, which kick off on Saturday. Lorraine Kelly tattooed apprentice artist Calum | Inga Elder Teams from 24 island groups, including Menorca, the Cayman Islands and Greenland, are set to compete in the games, described as a small-island version of the Olympics. Inga Elder, the owner of Image Orkney in Kirkwall, said she messaged Ms Kelly ahead of the games after the star joined in her cousin's 'blackening' - a traditional wedding custom - on the island a couple of years ago. 'I've kept it a secret for a couple of weeks,' Ms Elder said. 'I wanted to explode and tell people, but I couldn't. None of my staff knew.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad She said the town was 'buzzing' as competitors and spectators arriving for the tournament. 'Everyone's excited and there's a lot of hype,' Ms Elder said. 'People have put flags on their houses. It's bringing Orcadians together again. 'We're proud of where we're from. And to welcome all these other tourists and sportspeople, it's just great.' Ms Elder said when she returned downstairs on Thursday evening after filming with Ms Kelly, she found the team from Bermuda in the salon, asking at reception when they could book in for tattoos. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Ms Elder's husband, Calum Elder, is an apprentice artist at the salon and is competing for Orkney in the shot put competition on Monday. He competed as a swimmer at the games on the Isle of Man in 2001. 'I knew how special it would be to take part in the games in Orkney, so I wanted to find a way to shoehorn myself in,' he said. Mr Elder only started throwing in August last year, but as a competitive strongman it was a natural transition. He said: 'The games are about like-minded people coming together from all over the world, from places which are miles away but have similarities to the life we live in Orkney.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The games will be officially opened by the Princess Royal during the opening ceremony at a park in Kirkwall on Saturday, which is being hosted by Ms Kelly. The ceremony will be followed by an athletes' parade finishing at St Magnus Cathedral. The design for the Orkney 2025 medals | Kirstin Shearer Photography There are 12 sporting events taking place throughout the week, including athletics, swimming, cycling and gymnastics. Local businesses have been gearing up for months to prepare for the influx of visitors on the island. Ms Elder said: 'Everyone has come together to open later at night to offer food later at night. Everyone has cleaned up the front of their shops and put flowers and flags out. Everything's just looking sharp and colourful, it's lovely.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It is the second time a Scottish island has taken the reins, with the games being hosted in Shetland in 2005.
