Namibia’s Olympic 200m silver medalist, Christine Mboma, is poised to make her competitive comeback after a hiatus of 20 months.
Mboma, who secured the runner-up position at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, is classified as a female athlete with differences in sexual development (DSD).
She was sidelined from last year’s World Championships following World Athletics’ decision to lower the permissible blood testosterone levels for DSD athletes.
The 20-year-old has not participated in any competitions since winning the 200m bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in August 2022.
However, event organizers have confirmed that Mboma, who announced last year her use of testosterone-lowering medication, will be competing in the 100m event at the Kip Keino Classic in Kenya on April 20.
Mboma’s coach, Henk Botha, expressed his surprise at the rule changes affecting female athletes with elevated testosterone levels, which prevented her from competing in Budapest last year.
DSD encompasses a range of rare conditions where an individual’s hormones, genes, and/or reproductive organs may display a mixture of male and female characteristics. Some individuals affected by these conditions prefer the term “intersex.”
During Tokyo 2020, Mboma clocked a time of 21.81 seconds in the women’s 200m, securing the silver medal behind Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah.