LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Transgender women athletes are now excluded from the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on women's sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,” the International Olympic Committee said, “determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening.”

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level. No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games.

The eligibility policy that will apply from the LA Olympics in July 2028 “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category,” the IOC said.

“It is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” said the IOC, whose Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right.

After an executive board meeting, the International Olympic Committee published a 10-page policy document which also restricts female athletes such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSD.

The IOC and its president, Kirsty Coventry, have wanted a clear policy instead of continuing to advise sports’ governing bodies who previously have drafted their own rules.

Coventry set up a review of “protecting the female category” as one of her first big decisions last June as the first woman to lead the Olympic body in its 132-year history.

Female eligibility was a strong theme in a seven-candidate IOC election last year when Coventry’s main rivals pledged a stronger policy to leading on the issue.

Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, three top-tier sports — track and field, swimming and cycling — already passed rules excluding transgender women who had been through male puberty.

The IOC document details its research that being born male gives physical advantages that are retained.

"Males experience three significant testosterone peaks: in utero, in mini-puberty of infancy and beginning in adolescent puberty through adulthood," the document said.

It added this gives males “individual sex-based performance advantages in sports and events that rely on strength, power and/or endurance.”

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AP Winter Olympics at https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

SUZUKA, Japan (AP) — Lewis Hamilton said he finished a recent morning training run and returned to his hotel sweating after his workout to find a few fellow Formula 1 drivers just getting up.

“I know that none of the drivers I’m racing against have trained as hard as I have and given it what I have, especially at my age as well," the 41-year-old Hamilton said Thursday at the Suzuka Formula 1 circuit in central Japan, site of Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix.

“I love that — that I still have that drive to push myself," he added.

Not that he needed a boost. Hamilton is Formula 1's most decorated driver. He's won the most races (105), claimed the most poles (104) and has been on the podium 207 times.

And the British driver is tied at seven with Michael Schumacher for season championships.

But if he needed extra motivation he found it last year in his first season racing with F1's most storied team — Ferrari — after record-setting seasons with Mercedes.

By Hamilton's standards, it was abysmal. He didn't win a single race and didn't make a single podium. He finished four times in fourth place.

Hamilton was suddenly an also-ran, an uncomfortable spot for the sport's most high-profile driver and its most familiar face for two decades.

It's early in the season, but Hamilton seems to have found a remedy. He has a competitive car, finished third two weeks ago in the Chinese Grand Prix and he's tuned out critics.

“Just not letting all the (words) coming out of people’s mouths get in the way of knowing actually who I am and what I’m able to do," he said. “I've not lost what I had."

Mercedes has won the first two races — one each for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli — with Ferrari the other team that has fared well under this season's sweeping new rules.

F1 cars are using hybrid power units that are divided 50-50 between electric power and internal combustion power. Adding to the changes are lighter, more nimble chassis.

Some drivers have chafed under the new rules, and the most outspoken has been four-time champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull. He and others have called the racing “yo-yo racing” with cars pulling ahead, only to be overtaken as power seems to ebb and flow.

“It's making the racing better, but at times it's artificial,” Verstappen's teammate Isack Hadjar said Thursday.

Added Hamilton: “I think a lot of the drivers are not enjoying it, I’m just personally enjoying it.”

For Hamilton, that comes down to having a car this season “that can fight for wins," he said. He also said being battered last season by bad results has increased his drive, though he repeated several times he'd never lost his confidence.

“It’s a natural part of a process as an athlete,” he said. "You’ll go through seasons like that and (in) some of the most trying times — one of the most important things is getting back up and that’s what I’ve done this year.”

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Aaron Judge went hitless on opening day for the first time and struck out four times for the first time since September 2024, but the New York Yankees still produced plenty of offense and beat San Francisco 7-0 Wednesday night in the debut of Giants manager Tony Vitello as the major league season began.

José Caballero drove in the go-ahead run with an RBI single in a five-run second and also lost the first challenge taken to Major League Baseball’s so-called robot umpire, unsuccessfully appealing a strike by Logan Webb in the fourth.

Max Fried (1-0) allowed two hits in 6 1/3 innings to became just the fifth Yankees pitcher since 1969 with at least 6 1/3 shutout innings on opening day, joining Catfish Hunter (1977), Ron Guidry (1980), Rick Rhoden (1988) and David Cone (1996). New York won an opener with a shutout on the road for the first time since 1967.

Webb (0-1) started the fourth inning with a 90.7 mph sinker on the upper, inner corner that was called a strike by Bill Miller, a major league umpire since 1997. Caballero tapped his helmet, and the 12 Hawk-Eye cameras of the Automated Ball-Strike System upheld Miller’s decision in a graphic shown on the Oracle Park scoreboard.

Caballero singled in the second and Ryan McMahon followed with a two-run single before Austin Wells' single prompted a mound visit for Webb. Trent Grisham hit a two-run triple and was checked by medical staff after a hard slide into third.

Judge was booed before the game and during each at-bat as he began his 11th big league season. The California native had been pursued by the Giants during free agency in 2022 but he ultimately chose the Yankees' $360 million, nine-year contract offer.

Webb, a 15-game winner last season making his fifth start on opening day, was tagged for six earned runs — seven in all — and nine hits over five innings.

The 47-year-old Vitello made the big jump from coaching the University of Tennessee.

Up next

The teams resum3 the series Friday afternoon, with RHP Cam Schlittler starting for New York opposite lefty Robbie Ray.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb