THE IAAF has established a working group to determine whether amputee long jumper Markus Rehm can compete in the Olympics.

The German leapt 8.40 metres to win the IPC Athletics World Championships title in Doha last October. Greg Rutherford’s London 2012 Olympic gold medal-winning mark was 8.35m.

Rehm is bidding to compete in August’s Rio Olympics and then September’s Paralympics, but will only be permitted to do so if he can prove his prosthetic limb does not give him an unfair advantage.

The IAAF did not mention the 27-year-old 2012 Paralympic champion by name yesterday when it announced the establishment of a working group to study “the generic use of prosthesis in competition by athletes with a disability, specifically the long jump.”

The group was formed following a decision at last month’s IAAF council meeting, athletics’ world governing body said, and will meet for the first time in Monaco on April 20.

IAAF general secretary Jean Gracia, who will chair the group, said: “It is our aim to bring clarity to what is a complex question of technical eligibility as soon as possible.”

Double amputee Oscar Pistorius in 2008 took the case surrounding his running blades to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2008 and was successful, but then did not qualify for Beijing before later being convicted of murder.