Category Sports News

World Athletics president Lord Coe has welcomed the UK Supreme Court’s ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, saying it will benefit women’s sport.

Coe, 68, says World Athletics has always been committed to “protecting the integrity of women’s sport” and hopes the ruling will bring clarity to who can compete.

Current International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines allow individual sports to decide on the best approach to balancing “inclusion and fairness”.

Athletics introduced an outright ban on transgender women taking part in women’s events in 2023.

“First of all, I think it underpins common sense, but secondly, it removes a lot of legal uncertainty and interpretation.

“The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection, the promotion of the integrity of women’s sport.

“It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling here.”

World Athletics introduced a swab test for elite athletes who wish to compete in the women’s category at international events earlier this year.

The test looks for the SRY gene, which is “almost always on the male Y chromosome” and “is used as a highly accurate proxy for biological sex”.

Coe says the introduction of the test has been welcomed: “That was a very important step, and it’s been broadly welcomed in sport and that’s the position we’re in.

“Let me be clear, the World Athletics policy is very clearly defined, and it is around elite female sport – for us that is absolutely vital.

“This is a very different issue, and it is really important that we have clarity at the highest level of sport.

“Inclusivity is a very important element in our sport, and we hold that sacrosanct, and our policies are not preventing transgender competitors from wanting to enjoy the physicality of sport.

“We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female.”

Several sports including athletics, cycling and aquatics have implemented outright bans on transgender women taking part in women’s events.

In 2022, British Triathlon became the first British sporting body to establish an open category in which transgender athletes can compete.

Other sports have instead put in place eligibility criteria.

Earlier this month, the English Football Association introduced stricter rules, but would still allow transgender women to continue to compete in the women’s game as long as their testosterone was kept below a certain level.

Sport England, which is responsible for developing grassroots sport, said: “Sport England is not a regulator of sport and we do not run facilities.

“However, we do provide guidance on requirements around inclusion, safety and fairness to ensure that the needs of all groups are met.

“We are now considering what the ruling means for grassroots sports and clubs.”

Lando Norris says he is being forced to drive in a different manner this season in order to get the best out of the McLaren.

The 25-year-old Briton is leading the drivers ‘ championship by three points from his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri after finishing third in Bahrain.

However, Norris was searingly honest about his sixth-place qualifying performance last week, saying he felt “clueless” and like he had “never driven an F1 car before”.

He added his approach to the high-speed nature of the Jeddah circuit will change slightly, partly because he is struggling to replicate the same form in the car that saw him finish second in the title race to Max Verstappen in 2024.

“It is clear that there are things… things that have changed since last year, when I was feeling very comfortable. And that’s not allowing me to do as good of a job this year”, Norris said.

“It’s not that I’m doing a bad job, it’s just I’m not able to be at the level I should be, and know I can be and want to be.

” In order to perform better, I’m being forced to drive in a different way, in a different manner that I’m not used to. And that is not normal for me at all. “

Norris has been on the podium at every race so far and won the season opener in Melbourne in March, but his downcast nature in Sakhir was in stark contrast to Piastri’s.

The Australian, 24, won in China and Bahrain, and is much happier with the McLaren.

” The pace of the car has been everything I could ask for, “said Piastri.

He added:” Very proud of the whole job that we have done, firstly giving us a great car and also helping me get the most out of it.

Lando Norris says he is being forced to drive in a different manner this season in order to get the best out of the McLaren.

The 25-year-old Briton is leading the drivers’ championship by three points from his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri after finishing third in Bahrain.

However, Norris was searingly honest about his sixth-place qualifying performance last week, saying he felt “clueless” and like he had “never driven an F1 car before”.

He added his approach to the high-speed nature of the Jeddah circuit will change slightly, partly because he is struggling to replicate the same form in the car that saw him finish second in the title race to Max Verstappen in 2024.

“It is clear that there are things… things that have changed since last year, when I was feeling very comfortable. And that’s not allowing me to do as good of a job this year,” Norris said.

“It’s not that I’m doing a bad job, it’s just I’m not able to be at the level I should be, and know I can be and want to be.

“In order to perform better, I’m being forced to drive in a different way, in a different manner that I’m not used to. And that is not normal for me at all.”

Norris has been on the podium at every race so far and won the season opener in Melbourne in March, but his downcast nature in Sakhir was in stark contrast to Piastri’s.

The Australian, 24, won in China and Bahrain, and is much happier with the McLaren.

“The pace of the car has been everything I could ask for,” said Piastri.

He added: “Very proud of the whole job that we have done, firstly giving us a great car and also helping me get the most out of it.

Rohit Sharma has been under scrutiny for his poor form in the Indian Premier League (IPL), and his struggles so far in 2025 are consistent with a downward trend in the competition over the past three years.

The former Mumbai Indians captain, who still leads India’s white-ball teams, has scored 82 runs in six innings at an average of 13.66.

The opener’s 26 from 16 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday was his highest score this season, and with three sixes he showed some glimpses of a return to form before another soft dismissal off Pat Cummins.

“He’s finding it very hard to be consistent,” former IPL batter Abhishek Jhunjhunwala told BBC Sport.

Rohit’s run drought has also mirrored his own team’s form, as Mumbai have struggled to find a consistent winning combination – they are seventh in the table with three wins from seven.

However, this is unique to Rohit in the IPL specifically as he is still having plenty of success internationally with a T20 World Cup win in 2024 and the Champions Trophy title last month.

He is also a Mumbai legend having led them to five titles in 11 years as captain, while he is set to have a stand named after him at the iconic Wankhede stadium.

Mumbai’s most recent IPL title came in 2020, having also won the previous year, and Rohit was replaced as skipper by Hardik Pandya in 2024 – but in the all-rounder’s first edition in charge, they finished bottom of the table.

Rohit’s legendary status with the side is likely to earn him a longer run in order to solve his personal batting problems, but it could present the Mumbai hierarchy with a brave call to make if he cannot regain form – and if the team maintains its inconsistency, too.

“There is a lot of pressure on him, especially when he’s playing for India,” Jhunjhunwala added.

“In the IPL, they are ruthless as we’ve seen with so many players, and we’ve seen that with Mumbai Indians.

“There will be patience with him, especially at Mumbai, because he’s done brilliantly for them over the years.

“He’s still got it. I just feel that he’s maybe lost a bit of hand-eye coordination and that can happen, but your career can really go down quite quickly. He’s got to work on a lot of things, especially his fitness.”

Former England bowler Tymal Mills, who played with Rohit at Mumbai in 2022, also backed him to rediscover his best form and described him as “a nightmare for bowlers” when in full flow.

“He’s one of the most experienced players in the world, he has been there and done it at the highest level for a very long time,” Mills told BBC Sport.

“He will stick to his processes, he will hit a lot of balls. You’ll always see him going to training early and getting his extra work done before everyone else arrives.

“When you have played as long as Rohit has, you’re going to go through bad spells. Players of his class always re-emerge.

“He has earned the right to get a long leash because he’s had such a successful career and been a nightmare for bowlers.”

Top seed Carlos Alcaraz eased into the quarter-finals of the Barcelona Open with a straight-set win over Laslo Djere.

Spanish world number two Alcaraz, who triumphed at the Monte Carlo Masters last week, won 6-2 6-4 against Serbia’s unseeded Djere.

Alcaraz won the first five games and produced eight unanswered winners in a dominant first set.

The four-time Grand Slam winner suffered a blip in the second, falling 4-2 behind, before securing the final four games to triumph.

“After going 4-2 down in the second, I played a bit more like what my level is”, said Alcaraz.

“I am very happy that I could step up my level, and seem more like my best and I want to continue”.

The 21-year-old will play fifth seed Alex de Minaur in the last eight on Friday after the Australian thrashed Britain’s Jacob Fearnley.

Unseeded Fearnley beat Spain’s Roberto Carballes on Monday for his first ATP Tour win on clay, but was defeated 6-1 6-2 by De Minaur.

Elsewhere, Russian fourth seed Andrey Rublev lost 7-5 6-4 to unseeded Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.