A second women’s boxer who failed to satisfy her sport’s eligibility test is due to step into the Paris ring tonight (AEST) as the International Olympic Committee, Paris 2024 organisers and the International Boxing Association exchange blows in an increasingly bitter gender stoush.
While Asian Games champion Lin Yu-ting prepares for her next bout at 11.30pm AEST, the IOC has taken a few swift jabs at the IBA, the former world governing body benched last year for failing to address governance problems and corruption within its sport.
In a fiercely worded joint statement released in Paris on Friday, the IOC and Paris 2024 accused the IBA’s former secretary general and chief executive officer, George Yerolimpos, of making a “sudden and arbitrary” decision to disqualify Lin and Algerian fighter Imane Khelif from the last world championships.
“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years,” the statement read.
“These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process.
Eligibility rules should not be changed during ongoing competition, and any rule change must follow appropriate processes and should be based on scientific evidence.”
Imane Khelif is at the centre of a furore at the boxing.Credit: Eddie Jim
The statement further muddies the waters of a global imbroglio that engulfed North Paris Arena Paris on Thursday when Italian boxer Angela Carini pulled out of her fight against Khelif in the 66kg class after just 46 seconds into the opening round.
Carini turned to her corner immediately after the fight ended and cried out repeatedly “It’s not fair!” She later said she had never been hit so hard as the blows she received from Khelif during their short-lived fight.
The brief, one-sided bout between Carini and Khelif went viral on social media, elevating the previously little-known Italian boxer to iconic status among feminists concerned that a push for greater inclusion of gender diversity has encroached on the rights of women in sport.
The IOC, following its decision to strip its recognition of the IBA as the governing body for boxing, assumed governance responsibility for boxing at these Games. The joint IOC and Paris 2024 statement said they recognised whatever gender an athlete declares on their passport.
Khelif has identified as a woman since birth.
Although the IBA hasn’t fully explained why Khelif and Lin were disqualified from both the 2022 and 2023 world championships, the IBA competition rules make it clear that athletes with XY chromosomes cannot fight in women’s events. Once disqualified on this basis, an athlete is unable to enter future women’s events.
The Washington Post reported that IBA President Umar Kremlev, in 2023 comments to the Tass Russian news agency, said the two fighters were disqualified from that year’s world championships because “it was proven they have XY chromosomes”.
Minutes of a 2023 IBA board meeting held shortly after the world championships in Delhi note that the unspecified test was conducted by an independent laboratory and that the same procedure at the previous year’s world championships returned the same result.
The IBA this week released a statement endorsing its decision.
“The athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognised test, whereby the specifics remain confidential,” the statement read. “This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.
“While IBA remains committed to ensuring competitive fairness in all of our events, we express concern over the inconsistent application of eligibility criteria by other sporting organisations, including those overseeing the Olympic Games. The IOC’s differing regulations on these matters, in which IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety.”
The latest IOC and Paris 2024 intervention backs the rights of both Khelif and Lin to continue to fighting in Paris. Khelif is already through to Sunday’s quarter-finals and Lin will progress in the 57kg division if she can get past Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova.
