Sports
Namibian Teens To Fight Testosterone Ban
Namibian track and field stars Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi, both aged 18, have turned in four of the top five women’s 400m times in the world this year.
They were on a fast-track to Olympic medals, but then their stellar rise came to a sudden halt.
The pair have been banned from competing in the women’s 400m race at the Tokyo Games. The reasoning: their natural testosterone levels are too high.
The teenagers were both racing at international events when they learned the news.
Christine Mboma was with the duo’s coach, Henk Botha, travelling back to their training camp in Italy. When their plane landed, Botha received a call from Namibia’s Olympic Committee relaying the news. By the time he was able to call Beatrice Masilingi, his other trainee, she had already found out from social media.
The revelation came as a shock to both athletes. Neither of them had been tested before, and they had no reason to think their hormone levels were not within the typical range.
It is not the first time female runners have faced this problem. In 2018, Caster Semenya was banned from competing after World Athletics ruled that “to ensure fair competition, women with high natural testosterone levels must take medication to reduce them to compete in middle-distance races”.
But asking someone to take medication to alter something in a body they are happy with is controversial.
“I would ruin the way my body develops because that’ll be something that rearranges everything, how my body functions and everything,” says Masilingi.
“I wouldn’t want to involve any other things because this is the way my body functions in its normal way. And if I try something else, I might get caught somewhere else, and something might go wrong with my body.”
Beatrice Masilingi is concerned about artificially changing her natural hormone balance
Testosterone is a driver of red blood cell count, and the more red blood cells a person has, the more oxygen they can carry to their muscles, allowing them to run faster for longer amounts of time.
Men typically have higher testosterone levels than women, which is one of the reasons why, on average, they outperform women in athletic competition. And if people take testosterone as a performance-enhancing drug, they will generally perform better, says Dr Richard Holt, professor in diabetes and endocrinology at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton.
Research shows, however, that if you take a group of elite male athletes, all with varying testosterone levels, the ones with higher levels of the hormone do not necessarily perform better than those males with lower levels.
Dr Holt says the same is true of elite female athletes, which is why testosterone cannot be the whole story when it comes to athletic performance.
“There are a number of genetic polymorphisms, slight changes in the genes, that will actually determine whether somebody has that innate ability to be able to compete at the elite level,” he explains.
The problem, though, is where to draw the line between a testosterone advantage and other natural, genetic advantages.
, The author of Sporting Gender, Joanna Harper argues: “If you’re going to pick one advantage to separate the two categories [female and male], you want to pick an advantage that one group has that the other doesn’t. And you pick a biomarker that is widely divergent in the two groups.”
There had to be a line of demarcation at some point, and unfortunately Mboma and Masilingi were on the wrong side.
Harper, a transgender athlete herself, says: “It’s not an elegant solution by any stretch of the imagination, but it places fairly minimal restrictions on people… It’s not elegant, but it’s not, to my mind, horribly unreasonable either.”
Kenyan runner Margaret Wambui says athletics needs a third category beyond men and women.
World Athletics does not attempt to argue that Mboma and Masilingi, and other female athletes with high testosterone levels, are not women.
“We are committed to fairness for women in sport and reject any allegation that biological limits in the female category are based on race or gender stereotypes,” they told Tidesports source in a written statement.
“On the contrary, they provide an objective and scientific measure to define the female category, and are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of attaining what both the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federation Tribunal agreed was a legitimate objective.”
But for these two teenagers, a legal ruling on their womanhood is very personal.
“We all come from different areas and are raised differently. It’s just different. We are all created differently, with different purposes. So you can’t compare me with someone else. It’s really unfair,” says Masilingi.
As of now, the young women are not going to take legal action against World Athletics, but they will fight for their right to race.
“We won’t be quiet,” Masilingi concludes. “I’ll say the support system is very strong at the moment. There is a lot of it going on… It’s all over the world and seeing people against this rule and everything, which really means a lot. The love, the coaches, and everyone, it’s just good.”
The Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) has announced that the National Top 16 Table Tennis Championship will take place Ogu community in Ogu/Bolo local government area of Rivers State, from December 11-14, 2026, in a move aimed at expanding the sport’s popularity and developing talents in the South-South region.
The championship, which is being sponsored by the Fifika Chiri Foundation, according to the President of the NTTF, Dr Adesoji Tayo, would mark the beginning of a sustained effort to promote table tennis beyond its traditional stronghold in the South-West and establish the South-South as a major centre for the sport.
Tayo spoke during a visit to Ogu community, where he inspected facilities for the proposed competition and commended the President of Fifika Chiri Foundation, Alabo Boma Iyaye, for supporting the development of table tennis.
He described table tennis as a sport for everyone, irrespective of age, saying its benefits extended beyond competitive sports to recreation, physical fitness and healthy living.
“Table tennis is a game for all, and it is a game that can be played even till old age,” he said.
According to him, the sport could be played competitively, recreationally and as a means of livelihood, adding that it offered opportunities for young people to develop their talents and become internationally recognised athletes.
“Coming to Rivers State is not just to talk about competition; it is to talk about table tennis and how table tennis can help us to live a good daily life,” Tayo said.
The NTTF president expressed satisfaction with the facilities inspected in Ogu, describing the proposed venue as suitable for the championship.
“I’m happy that a beautiful edifice could be here. It’s good for the competition,” he said.
He also pledged the federation’s support in providing the necessary professional equipment and technical requirements for the event, including competition tables and other materials.
Tayo disclosed that the federation would facilitate the participation of the country’s top 16 male and female players, who would converge on Ogu to showcase their skills.
“We’ll bring them, we’ll facilitate the process of ensuring that they come. We will provide all the professional kits that they will require,” he said.
Speaking while hosting the NTTF president during a courtesy visit in Ogu, Alabo Boma Iyaye, who is also the Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), said his passion for table tennis was rooted in his childhood experiences and longstanding involvement in sports.
“Growing up in Port Harcourt, we all played table tennis. You cannot grow up in Port Harcourt and not play table tennis,” he said.
Iyaye said he subsequently decided to revive interest in the sport in his community by organising a local Christmas table tennis competition, which later expanded to attract players from across Rivers State.
He said the competition, which had been sustained for several years, inspired him to seek a national-level event for Ogu.
“At the local level, we started, and then we transcended to the state level. We have state players that come in here every Christmas to play table tennis. But this year, I said, ‘Can’t we make it a national competition?'” he said.
The foundation president described the decision to bring the National Top 16 Championship to Ogu as a major achievement for the community and Rivers State.
“I want to specially thank you for accepting to come, not only to Rivers State, but to Ogu, to host the National Top 16. That is a major feat,” he said.
He assured the federation that the community would provide the necessary facilities and logistical support to ensure a successful competition.
According to him, Ogu has hotels, a good road network, a memorial hall suitable for indoor sports and reliable electricity supply through the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company and solar power systems.
“We will do everything within our means to make sure that this competition is not only held in Ogu once, but will continuously hold in this part of the world,” Iyaye said.
He added that the initiative was not only intended to develop table tennis but also to place Ogu on the international sporting map.
Also speaking, the South-South representative on the NTTF board, Ama-ebi Ebikpolade, described the decision to host the competition in Rivers State as a significant development for the region.
He said the South-South had not hosted a major NTTF competition in a long time, despite Rivers State’s reputation as a sporting destination.
“For the first time, I think for the first time, a tournament of that level is coming to Rivers State,” Ebikpolade said.
He commended Iyaye for providing the support needed to bring the championship to Ogu, describing the development as the first step towards making the community an annual host of the competition.
“Today, we have started. We have taken the first step towards the annual hosting of the Nigerian National Top 16 in Ogu, courtesy of Alabo Boma Iyaye, and we cannot thank him enough,” he said.
The 2026 Confederation of African Football (CAF) Awards ceremony has been postponed, with the new date fixed for December 2, 2026, in Lagos, Nigeria, BSNSports.com.ng reports.
The prestigious awards ceremony, which celebrates outstanding achievements in African football, will bring together the continent’s finest players, coaches, teams and other football stakeholders.
The event is expected to recognise individuals and teams whose performances have shaped African football over the past year.
The postponement means football fans and stakeholders will have to wait a little longer to celebrate the continent’s outstanding performers in what remains one of the biggest events on the African sporting calendar.
Lagos will host the glittering ceremony as Africa’s football community gathers to honour excellence across the continent.
President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday announced the award of a ?100 million Federal Government Savings Bond to each player on Nigeria’s victorious U-17 women’s football team, the Flamingos.
The bonds attract an annual interest rate of 14 per cent. The investment by the government for the players is for five years.
President Tinubu also announced a cash gift of ?100 million for the coach and ?50 million for each member of the technical crew.
The President announced the rewards during a reception at the Presidential Villa in Abuja for the Flamingos, who reportedly won the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco.
The Flamingos defeated Japan to become the first African team to win the tournament.
President Tinubu was represented at the reception by the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
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