The IOC is Late Out of the Blocks in its Transgender Ruling

Last night I watched the livestream of the Berlin Half Marathon, looking out for an Instagram Influencer, Ben Felton of BenIsRunning fame.

He was hunting a sub 1:05 for the event, a cool 3:04min per kilometre. He’s been working hard for this one, and I’m glad to say as I watched the clock tick over to 1:04:30 he glided into sight – (“Looking good Ben!”) -, crossing the line with some ten seconds to spare.

And here’s what else I noticed in the livestream.At the same time Ben was about to finish (53rd position overall), the officials were starting to raise the tape for the first female, Ethiopia’s Lekina Amebaw, who crossed the line some 17 seconds behind Felton. An impressive run at a blistering pace. Great stuff.

It was serendipitous that I saw Ben. He’s a no-name in global racing, but he managed to be in shot when the cameras panned away from the interviews and congratulations of the winning men, towards Amebaw’s final couple of hundred metres.

Amebaw will receive plaudits, a strong reputation in the running world, and, of course, money. So she should.

And Felton? The lad from South England? Well as an influencer, and the most popular running Instagrammers on the globe, he’ll get plenty of pats on the back and a couple of new running gear deals. I can’t wait for the Insta reel of his race to come out. You can follow him here.

But Ben Felton will never be a true elite. He’ll never represent his country in the sport, because he’s about five to six minutes away from being internationally competitive. Doesn’t sound much, but that’s almost two kilometres in terms of distance. The winner ran 59:11. But even that is almost two minutes slower than the world record.

Make no mistake, Ben’s effort was fantastic. So good that he beat the first woman – an internationally renowned runner – , by nearly half a minute.

And as is often the case in these crazy times, I’m left wonder what Ben’s fame and fortune would be if he self-identified as a female runner.

Why do I say this? Because the International Olympic Committee has restored some of its credibility by announcing that transgender athletes, or those who do not pass gender testing criteria, can no longer compete at the Olympic Games.

Well, not that they cannot compete. Just that they cannot compete in the women’s categories.

The decision is welcome, but comes too late for the women boxers who had the snot beaten out of them at the last Olympics by boxers who had both failed gender tests.

Gold medals were won by athletes who could not prove that they were women. And not in a sport where there is no physical contact, but in the primary sport in which strength and power, and the ability to batter one’s opponent into submission, is the primary object.

And despite concerns by athletes, despite outcries from women, the activists in the trans movement applauded it. They cheered at the tears and blood and – yes snot – of the women who knew they were being cheated out of medals.

These young women were not only threatened in the ring by someone who is not a woman, they were threatened outside the ring, pilloried, abuse and pressured to back down from their statements.

One young woman from Italy threw in the towel less than a minute into her preliminary bout with one of the eventual gold medalists, such was the brute force of the blows she was receiving.

And, once again, the trans movement is proving just how hostile it is to women in particular. There is almost a glee in which it loves to see actual women beaten down, and if that can be an actual beating, then all the more so apparently.

Now why do I only say that the IOC has made the case that trans male-to-female, or those unable to prove that they are women, cannot compete? Why not the other way around as well? Why not go hard against women trying to compete in the male categories?

Because it’s a moot point. Because Ben Felton and Lekina Amabaw. Because it’s never going to happen at elite level.

Let’s face it, it is always women who get beaten down. There is yet to be a case where a women who identifies as a man has been able to compete at truly elite levels in any sport that requires speed or explosive power.

This is not to say that the odd woman wins micro sport events, including ultra marathons. But even these are so exceptional that we read about them. But given all conditions, with every elite runner from both genders fit and on the line, it simply does not happen.

If a man who identifies as a woman wishes to compete in the elite male category, they are free to do so. Except of course, unless they were already elite when identifying as a man, it ain’t gonna happen. As I said – moot point.

Yet “also-rans” in the male category can suddenly make the leap to the female elite categories. Or at least they have been encouraged by the cowed silence of those officials who didn’t want to find themselves trolled online, or subject to abuse in the progressive journals.

I well remember a very solid male runner at parkrun in my home state who returned to running after several months identifying as a woman. I checked up on the women’s parkrun record in my home state, and it had transferred to that former very solid male runner with nary a squeak. I wonder how they young woman who had previously held it felt.

Trans male-to-female identifying athletes may pip the women at the post in the women’s races, but the evidence is clear that they are not in the same ballpark as the elite men.

And worse than that, at the postponed Tokyo Games in 2021, New Zealander trans lifter, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first transgender athlete picked to compete at an Olympics.

This was seen as a victory for minorities. Except of course the 43 year-old took the spot of an 18 year old Oceania qualifier from the tiny nation of Nauru, who missed out because someone who had lived as a man through the important years of testosterone-laden puberty, decided that on the wrong side of forty that he deserved that spot. Once again, actual women are the losers.

But let’s not blame Laurel. Let’s blame the International Olympic Committee for its tardiness. For an organisation so intrigued by how quickly runners get out of the blocks, the IOC is notoriously slow at doing so itself.

The IOC – belatedly – went hard against the testosterone-fuelled athletes who were caught cheating – both male and female. But not before many athletes, including Australia’s famed Raelene Boyle, were cheated out of gold medals.

As history has proven, the communist Eastern bloc went out of its way to pump its female athletes full of steroids back in the 70s and 80s.

Which is why the best female middle distance runner of our generation, England’s Keely Hodgkinson, is still trying to hunt down the 800m world record, held by East Germany’s Jarmila Kratochvílová.

Here’s what AI brings up, when asked about that record:

As of March 2026, Keely Hodgkinson does not hold the outdoor 800m world record, but she is actively targeting Jarmila Kratochvílová’s long-standing 1:53.28 mark from 1983.

With all of the high tech gear, the faster tracks, the increased knowledge around data, nutrition etc, Hodgkinson still may never achieve that target. It’s long-standing for a reason, because the Communist bloc loved to cheat in order to prove the worthiness and superiority of its worldview. It wasn’t merely a sports battle, it was an ideological battle.

Which is exactly what the trans issue in elite sport is. And which is also why it is so furiously defended by ideologues.

This is less about athletic prowess and more about an ideological commitment to reshape reality and prove the superiority of what will eventually be proven to be a lie (just as Communism’s supposed superiority was so proven).

The trans movement has worked hard to get acceptance of its reality; that gender is a construct and that biological sex is not determinative of gender, and that biological reality should be subsumed in all instances under gender.

And since sport is so clearly gender-categorised (hello Ben Felton and Lekina Amebaw), then sport must fall at the feet of the new reality in order to embed it in our cultural plausibility.

To fail at this hurdle means that transgender ideology may be at risk elsewhere. This is a zero-sum game. If organisations such as the IOC stare it down, then that surface reality begins to crack.

Which is exactly what is now happening, and exactly for the reason of it being a surface reality.

Every mouth swab of an athlete would prove their gender. And, sorry to say, if you can’t prove your gender, then its not the role of an international sporting organisation with billions at stake, and athletes competing to the thousandth of a second for entry, to give you a hall pass.

It’s not the role of an international sporting organisation to prop up your ideology. The problem with international sporting organisations is that they have been propping up all sorts of ideologies for decades, then suddenly one comes along that threatens them in a way they hadn’t envisaged.

If the IOC had any integrity, it would do what it does to the medals of convicted drug cheats in athletics. It would take them back and award them to those next down the line. I suspect this will not happen. But at least their decision is a start.

And that’s a happy day. Though perhaps it’s a day too late for a young no-name Naura woman (ok, let’s honour her by naming her – Revile Detenamo) who qualified in weightlifting, only to have her dream snatched away by a 43 year old male from a progressive Westernised nation.

And, sadly, too late for a whole bunch of young women boxers who had the snot beaten out of them, and were jeered and booed by the ideologues as it happened.

The IOC is late out of the blocks, but better late than never I suppose.