Halba Diouf has not given up the race. The 24-year-old French-Senegalese sprinter, a transgender woman, is now aiming for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, after being left out of the selections for Paris 2024.

Halba Diouf, a 200m specialist, posted a very promising time of 22.61 seconds, just four hundredths of a second shy of the Olympic qualifying standard. However, he was denied entry to the competition due to strict World Athletics (the international governing body for athletics) regulations.

World Athletics prohibits transgender women who have experienced male puberty from participating in international women's competitions, citing the need to preserve sporting fairness.

"I am a woman, you have to deal with that," the athlete asserts, denouncing discrimination that, according to her, does not take into account her hormonal reality.

Halba Diouf points out that her testosterone level is currently lower than that of many cisgender athletes. Despite the controversy, she trains with the same determination: to prove that she deserves her place on the track, just like everyone else.

The debate intensifies: Donald Trump's position

The case of Halba Diouf is part of a heated global debate on the inclusion of transgender athletes, a subject that has also been instrumentalized on the political scene, particularly in the United States.

US President Donald Trump has adopted a particularly firm and radical stance on this issue. He notably signed an executive order aimed at excluding transgender athletes from women's sports categories.

Upon signing this document, Donald Trump promised to cut federal funding to schools and organizations that allow transgender students to join girls' sports teams. He declared that "the war on women's sports is over," claiming without factual evidence that these athletes "easily surpass" the records of cisgender athletes, and calling this development "woke nonsense."

This position, very popular with a part of his electoral base, illustrates the political pressure exerted on sporting institutions like the International Olympic Committee (IOC), even for events like Los Angeles 2028.