Boxers barred due to "gender eligibility" will compete in Olympics
July 31, 2024Two boxers, previously disqualified from competing with women at a global event last year, have been allowed to fight in the Paris Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed.
Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan failed to meet gender eligibility requirements at the Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi last year, resulting in their disqualification. However, they have now been cleared to compete in the women’s 66-kilogram and women’s 57-kilogram matches in Paris this week, the IOC confirmed in an email Tuesday.
Upon their disqualification, the president of the International Boxing Association, which oversees the World Boxing Championships, claimed the boxers’ chromosome tests were XY (while women typically have two X chromosomes, men typically have an X and a Y chromosome).
“Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women,” the association’s president, Umar Kremlev, told Russia’s Tass news agency at that time. “According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition.”
According to ‘NBC News’, both Khelif and Lin have consistently competed as women, with no indications that either identifies as trans or intersex—a term for those born with sex characteristics that do not fit strictly into the male-female gender binary.
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After her disqualification last year, Khelif told Algeria’s Ennahar TV that some “did not want Algeria to win a gold medal.”
“This is a conspiracy and a big conspiracy, and we will not be silent about it,” she said.
Lin has not publicly commented on her disqualification.
In an email Tuesday, the IOC stated that “all athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations.”
The IOC revised its rules regarding athletes’ gender eligibility, including transgender participation guidelines, in 2021 to defer to each sport’s governing body. The IOC no longer recognises the IBA as the governing body over Olympic boxing and instead refers to the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit—an ad-hoc unit developed by the IOC—for its eligibility standards.
In the United States, where the issue of whether trans women should be permitted to compete in women’s sports has been a topic of heated debate in recent years, critics condemned the inclusion of Khelif and Lin in this week’s competition. Some questioned the fairness of their participation to other female competitors, while others directed inflammatory language toward the boxers.
Khelif is set to compete against Italy’s Angela Carini on Thursday, and Lin is scheduled to fight against Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova on Friday.
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