The International Olympic Committee has defended its decision to allow two boxers who failed testosterone and gender eligibility tests at the 2023 world championships to compete in Paris.
Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu‑ting of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) were disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships with the International Boxing Association president, Umar Kremlev, saying DNA tests had “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded”.
The IBA said it had made the decision “following a comprehensive review and was intended to uphold the fairness and integrity of the competition”.
However the IBA is not running the Olympic boxing competition in Paris. The IOC has confirmed it is happy for both fighters to compete under the less strict gender eligibility rules that were in place for the Tokyo Games in 2021.
“Obviously I am not going to comment on individuals,” the IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said. “That’s really invidious and unfair. But I would just say that everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules. They are women in their passports and it is stated that is the case.”
Khelif will meet the Italian Angela Carini in the 66kg category on Thursday, while Lin faces an unnamed opponent in the 57kg category a day later. The former world champion Barry McGuigan has been one of many people to express his unease about the decision, calling it “shocking”.
Adams conceded that rules regarding who should compete in the female category were “complex”, especially when it came to those who had undergone male puberty, but said it should be up to each sport to make a decision rather than the IOC.
“As for the question about testosterone and going through male puberty, we issued a framework document to all the federations,” he said. “And everyone would love to have a single answer: yes, no, yes, no. But it’s incredibly complex.
“And actually it boils down to not just sport by sport, but discipline by discipline. So people may have an advantage in this discipline and not in this discipline if they have been through male puberty or not.”
Adams added the IOC’s position was for sports to try to balance fairness in female sport with inclusivity. “Federations need to make the rules to make sure that there is fairness, but at the same time with the ability for everyone to take part who wants to,” he said.
“That’s a difficult balance. In the end it’s up to the experts for each discipline. They know very well where there is an advantage, and if that is a big advantage then that is clearly not acceptable. But that decision needs to be made at that level. “
