Appeal to get women's 50km walk into Tokyo 2020 suffers setback as CAS rules it has no jurisdiction
Tuesday, 4 February 2020
An attempt by a group of female race walkers to force World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to add a 50 kilometres event for women to the programme for this year's Olympic Games in Tokyo has suffered a potentially fatal setback after the Court of Arbitration (CAS) announced today it could not rule on the appeal because it does not have jurisdiction in the matter.
Among those who had appealed to CAS was Portugal's Inês Henriques, winner of the gold medal in the event at the 2017 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in London.
The appeal had originally been filed in April last year with the backing of American lawyer Paul F. DeMeester, who had accused the IAAF of discriminating against women by not including a race for them at major championships.
The decisions can be accessed on the CAS website at
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