Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya ⁠says she intends to fight ⁠against the introduction of gender testing for the female category at the Olympics, a policy the South African insists “undermines women’s rights”.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) unveiled the policy last week and it is expected to become a universal ⁠rule for competitors in female elite sports after years of fragmented regulation that led to controversy.

Semenya has been at the centre of one of those controversies due to her long-running legal case against World Athletics over her right to compete on the track despite having a ⁠Difference of Sexual Development (DSD).

“We’re going to be vocal about it, we’re going to make noise until we’re heard,” the 35-year-old athlete told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

“Now it’s a matter of women standing for themselves to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ We are not going to be told how to do things.

“If really we are accepted as women to take part, why does my appearance or my voice, why do my inner parts ‌need to be a problem to take part in the sport?”

DSDs are a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs. Some people with DSDs are raised as female but have XY sex chromosomes and blood testosterone levels in the male range.

The IOC policy document said including “androgen-sensitive XY-DSD athletes” in the female category in events that rely on strength, power or endurance “runs fundamentally counter to ensuring fairness, safety and integrity in elite competition”.

Semenya, who won two Olympic and three world titles in the 800 metres before being limited to shorter events, believes the IOC got the science wrong.

Semenya said “there’s no science” that XY-DSD gave an athlete ⁠an advantage. “I’ve been there, I’ve done that. There’s no such thing as that,” she said.

“There are people ⁠who are delusional. There are people who are convinced because a woman is masculine, a woman is born with intersex conditions, the DSD, they’ve mentioned all those things [that they have an advantage].

“But what I say is that if you’re going to be a great athlete, it’s through hard work.”

The test that will be applied to ⁠all athletes who want to compete in the female class will be conducted by a cheek swab or saliva analysis.

There will be further investigation for any athletes who test positive for the SRY gene, ⁠which is on the Y chromosome and triggers the development of male characteristics in ⁠mammals.

“What this decision does, it undermines women. It undermines women’s dignity. It violates women’s rights because we know historically, these [tests] have failed before,” Semenya said.

“Women need to be celebrated. Women are not supposed to be questioned about their gender. Why that is their physique? Why it is how they look like? It doesn’t matter. Neither also the ‌hormone level. Those are the things that are obviously genetics that cannot be controlled.”

Semenya said IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the first woman and first African to hold the office, had failed to properly consult her or other athletes living with DSDs about the policy.

“They sent us ‌a ‌letter the day they were going to publish [the new policy],” she said.

“If you’re going to consult, consult with a genuine heart. Don’t consult because you’re ticking the box. Unfortunately, they have ticked a wrong box.”

Over the Team USA women’s hockey team’s run to Olympic gold, there was no player more valuable than Caroline “KK” Harvey.

Harvey, a defenseman who grew up in both Salem and Pelham, was named the tournament’s most valuable player after the U.S. went undefeated over seven games at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics.

When she returned stateside, the 23-year-old helped the University of Wisconsin win two Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) tournament games.

For her efforts on both the world and college stage last month, Harvey was chosen as the February New Hampshire Union Leader Apple Therapy Services/Bedford Ambulatory Surgical Center/Express MED Athlete of the Month by the Union Leader Board of Judges.

This was Harvey’s second trip to the Winter Games. She helped Team USA take silver in 2022 at the Beijing games, which had heavy COVID-19-related restrictions.

“It was great, especially with family and friends there,” Harvey told the Union Leader earlier this month of her most recent Olympic experience. “I enjoyed it all. It went by really quick but our end goal was to go there and capture gold and I was excited to do that and proud of our group.”

Harvey recorded eight points on two goals and six assists for Team USA, which outscored its opponents 33-2. Team USA defeated rival Canada 2-1 in overtime in the final on Feb. 19.

The gold medal marked Team USA’s third overall and first since 2018. This was its first unbeaten run in a Winter Games since the 1998 team that featured Concord’s Tara Mounsey, Salem’s Katie King and Derry’s Tricia Dunn.

Harvey had consecutive three-point games in preliminary-round wins over Switzerland and Canada, prompting Team USA men’s hockey player Matthew Tkachuk to compare her to a Boston Bruins legend.

“Caroline Harvey’s like Bobby Orr,” he told reporters after watching the U.S. women beat Canada 5-0 in the preliminary round. “She was the best player on the ice, it felt like, by a lot. She was incredible.”

Harvey has been asked about that comment a lot since then.

“That was really nice of him,” she said. “Bobby Orr, he was a legend and no one compares to him but it meant a lot, obviously, coming from him (Tkachuk).”

When Harvey rejoined Wisconsin, the Badgers were about to play Bemidji State in the opening round of the WCHA tournament.

Wisconsin swept the Beavers by a combined 10-2 score, the WCHA Player of the Year, Harvey logged four assists in the series.

The Badgers won the NCAA Division I national championship for the second consecutive season and Harvey won the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award earlier this month. The Patty Kazmaier is given annually to the top women’s college hockey player.

Harvey leaves nine-time NCAA champion Wisconsin with the most points by a defender (201) and second-most assists (147) in program history. She helped the Badgers win three national titles over four trips to the final during her tenure.

“We’ve all seen what she’s done on the ice and we all noticed her Game 1 as a freshman when she came in after (her) Olympic year,” Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson said after the Badgers beat Ohio State University 3-2 in the national title game on March 22. “She’s going to be a world-class player.”

Other athletes considered for the February award were Stanford University men’s basketball player Ebuka Okorie, Exeter High School indoor track athlete Lexi Paterna, Pinkerton Academy gymnast Rebecca King, Bedford High School swimmer Tyler Chun, Derryfield School senior swimmer/skier Jake Oliviero and Lin-Wood Public School skier Carver Krill.

A freshman guard from Nashua, Okorie averaged 28 points, four assists, 3.2 rebounds and 2.2 steals as the NCAA Division I Cardinal went 3-2 in February.

Paterna, a junior, set two state records and won three events as Exeter won the NHIAA Division I Indoor Championships with a meet-record 126 points on Feb. 8.

King, a senior from Derry, won both the all-around (37.85 score) and vault (9.55) as she helped Pinkerton win the NHIAA Gymnastics State Championship with a state-record score of 149.025 on Feb. 14.

A junior, Chun won four events, including the 100-yard butterfly in a state-record time (50.03 seconds), as Bedford won its sixth straight NHIAA Division I title on Feb. 13-14.

Oliviero, a senior from Bedford, posted two top-three finishes at both the NHIAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships and the Division IV Alpine Skiing Championships and two top-10 finishes at the NHIAA Alpine Skiing Meet of Champions last month.

Krill, a freshman, won both the giant slalom and slalom races as he led Lin-Wood to the NHIAA Division IV Alpine Skiing Championship on Feb. 10, then won the giant slalom and took second in the slalom at the NHIAA Meet of Champions on Feb. 18.

Previous 2026 winner: January, Nolan Walsh, Concord (hockey).

Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito wanted a shot at a world championship medal after missing out at the 2026 Winter Olympics, but the American stars fell just short.

In podium contention at the 2026 world figure skating championships in Prague, Glenn and Levito had errors in their free skate on Friday, March 27, that proved to be too costly, resulting in a fourth place finish for Levito and sixth for Glenn. Fellow U.S. skater Sarah Everhardt ended in 11th.

Decorated Japan skater Kaori Sakamoto, the silver medalist in Milano Cortina, claimed gold, capping off her stellar career with her fourth first-place finish in the past five years after the three-peat from 2022-24. Fellow Japanese skater Mone Chiba took silver and Nina Pinzarrone of Belgium won bronze.

Both Glenn and Levito did well in their short programs, entering the night in third and fourth place, respectively. While Levito has a previous medal at worlds − a silver in 2024 − Glenn was going for her first one at the event, finishing in fifth last year.

Levito went first and had an under-rotated jump early in her program that resulted in a score of 134.83.

Glenn followed, skating a program that was strong in the Olympics and, if replicated, would have assured her a medal. She started strong with a picture perfect triple Axel.

But then the mistakes happened. The triple salchow was under rotated, and a triple loop, which devastated her short program in Milano Cortina, was decisive again when she was unable to complete the jump. Glenn sat on the ice when she was done skating, clearly upset at the mistakes.

Glenn earned a score of 130.47 for the free skate, keeping her off the podium before Sakamoto and Chiba went on the ice. Levito had a chance to medal if Sakamoto and Chiba struggled, but the Japanese skaters looked exceptional on the ice, leaving no doubt of their victories.

Both American athletes were competing roughly a month after the Olympics ended, coming to Prague after battling illnesses as well. The competition notably didn't have Olympic champion Alysa Liu, who withdrew from worlds as she has been wrapped up in several career opportunities since becoming the breakout star of the Winter Olympics.

The title is the perfect ending for Sakamoto, with this season being the final one of her career. She hoped to add Olympic gold to her resume in February but took silver. She ends her run with four world titles, a Grand Prix Final champion and as a five-time Japanese champion.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amber Glenn, Isabeau Levito don't medal at world championships

Soon after Kirsty Coventry became president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last summer, she held a private consultation with IOC members to gauge their feelings on a range of important issues. At the end of the session, Czech representative Jiri Kejval stood up to speak. “I’ve been a member of the IOC for five years,” he said, “and this is the first time somebody has asked my opinion.”

It has been a year since Coventry was elected president, crushing competition that included British candidate Sebastien Coe in her path to becoming the first woman and first African to lead the Olympic movement. It has been nine months since she officially replaced Thomas Bach, and IOC members and officials speak of significant cultural change from Bach’s 12-year reign.

It is not only that she has opened up dialogue with members like Kejval. After she was elected president, Coventry moved her young family to live near the IOC’s headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. There, she often finishes her working day at 5pm to go home and be with her family. At the recent Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, she could be seen having breakfast with her baby son as he liberally splattered her with food. Her “normal” approach to the presidency has made the atmosphere inside the IOC’s walls less pressurised, more relaxed and more in tune with the modern world.

Internally, the former swimmer, who twice won Olympic gold for Zimbabwe before becoming the country’s sports minister, is seen as tough, but she wears responsibility lightly, in what is perhaps the most powerful office in sport.

But outside the IOC, major challenges have begun to surface. Vladyslav Heraskevych, the Olympic skeleton racer who wore images of Ukrainians killed in Russia’s war, was a sign of the tangles that await. Coventry personally intervened and was moved to tears in her efforts to persuade Heraskevych to drop the helmet, while standing by the principle of no political messaging inside the field of play. He couldn’t be swayed and has been deeply critical of Coventry in the weeks since.

Coventry has made no secret of her desire to move the Olympics away from its expanded role under Bach, when it tried to act as an arbiter of international geopolitics. Some IOC members The Independent has spoken to weren’t happy with the way Bach pitched the IOC as an arm of the UN and an agent of world peace. Coventry won the presidency on an athlete-first manifesto, and she wants the IOC to revert to its primary mission of being an organiser of Olympic sport.

Her speech at the opening of the Winter Olympics was telling, when she spoke almost exclusively to the athletes rather than the wider world. Another example came last month when the IOC issued a belated statement on the US’s bombing of Iran. The statement played down the famous Olympic Truce as only “an aspirational and non-binding resolution”, and therefore not something with which to beat the US – the next host of the summer Olympics. Coventry did not want the IOC to start playing judge and jury.

But ducking politics will be impossible. Issues are coming thick and fast. Coventry was blindsided at a recent press conference by a series of questions relating to wider concerns, from Fifa president (and IOC member) Gianni Infantino’s relationship with Donald Trump, to the prospect of the Olympics being held in Germany on the centenary of the infamous Nazi-organised 1936 Games in Berlin.

“OK, I’m really looking at my team and maybe someone needs to be dismissed because I’m not aware of that either,” she half-joked as she tried to bat away the inquisition. Coventry was irked to be on the back foot, but perhaps there was also a hint of strategy as she claimed ignorance on the subjects.

She is already facing deeply emotive issues of war and of gender identity. Her announcement this week that the IOC will ban transgender women from women’s events in future Olympics was welcomed by much of the IOC’s membership, and plenty of the wider sporting world which had been left searching for guidance from Bach. It signalled her clarity of thought. But the decision to use controversial gene screening to test athletes’ genders is likely to face criticism on ethical grounds.

Then there is the looming figure on the horizon, Trump. An IOC source recently told The Independent that Coventry is quietly dreading her political dance with the US president in the run-up to the 2028 Olympics in LA. One can only guess which countries he will have banned and which he will have bombed by the time the Games come around.

She is unlikely to take the same ego-stroking approach as her Fifa counterpart Infantino, who has been seen gurning in a Trump-issue red cap and handing over misjudged peace prizes. But those who don’t bow down to Trump’s ego tend to feel his wrath.

There will be an additional edge to the LA Olympics, given that the Games will take place in California, a Democrat heartland and a state Trump hates. The governor, Gavin Newsom, may well be the next Democratic presidential nominee and Trump hates him too. The chair of the Olympic committee is Casey Wasserman, a prominent Democrat supporter and Hollywood type who, yes, Trump hates. Wasserman’s role running LA 2028 has come under severe pressure since the release of the Epstein files, which is not a great look for the Olympics. The files revealed “flirty email exchanges” between him and Ghislaine Maxwell from two decades ago. All this will only add to the mess through which Coventry must nimbly navigate.

Then there is the question of Russia’s participation, made more complicated by the Paralympics’ decision to fully reinstate the country and its ally Belarus. There will be questions about sustainability before the bloated 36-sport LA Games, as well as challenges to make the Olympics relevant for youth audiences. Coventry has made a solid impression inside the IOC, but ultimately her reign and legacy will be judged by how she handles the outside world.

Her desire to focus purely on organising sports events will inevitably be knocked off-course. The Olympics is too powerful to escape hard questions, too desirable to avoid being used for political point-scoring. Coventry’s job is to chart the IOC’s path through these choppy waters. A year after she was sensationally elected by her members, the real task is only just beginning.