Initial methods used to verify the gender of female athletes involved physical inspection of the athlete’s external genitalia.
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To spare athletes such embarrass- ment, from the outset Olympic officials relied on the technology of medical genetics for an alternative, less invasive solution.
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After successful trialling of the protocol at the 1968 Winter Olympics held in Grenoble, France, all female athletes participating in the Mexico City Summer Games later that year were tested by histological (micro- scopic) inspection for the presence of a Barr body...
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in cells scraped from the buccal (cheek) mucosa. Although such laboratory based testing held certain advantages, there were also acknowledged limitations to the methodology.
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Beginning with the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics, in an effort to further improve on the sensitivity and specificity of testing, gender verification was performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) determination of the absence or presence of DNA sequences.....
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