A worldwide controversy surrounding Imane Khelif’s and Lin Yu-ting’s eligibility to compete in the women’s division surrounded their respective gold medal victories in boxing at Paris 2024.
The dispute took center stage over the boxing and occasionally dominated international media coverage of the Games.
However, there are still some important problems about sport that need to be answered, so this issue is not resolved with the Olympics.
The Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA), which oversees the World Championships, disqualified the two competitors for allegedly failing “eligibility criteria” after “gender testing” as a consequence of “many complaints from several coaches.”
The two fighters underwent blood testing in May 2022 and March 2023, according to the IBA, and the results “conclusively indicated” that they “didn’t match the eligibility criteria for IBA women’s events.”
They have since stated that the two cases included male XY chromosomes. Umar Kremlev, President of IBA, added that the tests “show they were men”.
While Khelif did pursue her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) and later abandoned the appeal, Lin chose not to challenge the ruling.
But the IBA was suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2019 due to problems with integrity and governance, and last year, due to its inability to implement reforms, the IOC deprived the IBA of its official status. Additionally, the IBA disregarded IOC directives by permitting Russian participants to compete in its world championships.
Due to this disagreement, the boxing competition at the Olympics in Paris, as well as the one in Tokyo, was overseen by the IOC. Less strict eligibility requirements are applied.
The IOC has always recognized the boxers as female competitors, stating that they are eligible for women’s competition under their rules because they were born and raised as women and have women’s passports. This is true even though they were made aware of the IBA’s test results last year.
Others contend that the manner in which someone
But the IOC has also questioned the timing and validity of the IBA’s testing, pointing out that the boxers competed for years without being put through any testing. It also cast doubt on the IBA’s integrity, citing a disorganized news conference in Paris that had multiple contradictions as proof that their test results should not be trusted.