The second fighter at the centre of Olympic boxing’s gender row has booked her place in the quarter-finals of the competition with a comfortable points victory.
Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan beat Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova by unanimous decision in their women’s 57kg bout at the North Paris Arena on Friday.
Lin is one of two boxers who have been allowed to compete at these Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), despite having been disqualified from last year’s World Championships for failing a gender test.
The other, Algeria’s Imane Khelif, started her campaign on Thursday in hugely controversial fashion, as Italian opponent Angela Carini abandoned their fight after just 46 seconds. Carini broke down in tears in the ring and in interviews afterwards, claiming she took the decision out of fear for her safety.
Lin went into her fight as the heavy favourite against an opponent who had only qualified for these Games after another boxer was kicked out. The fight was scored in Lin’s favour by all five judges.
Lin will meet Bulgaria’s Svetlana Staneva in the last eight on Sunday morning, while Khelif faces Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary at the same stage of the 66kg competition on Saturday.
The Hungarian Boxing Association says it is writing to the IOC to protest against Khelif’s involvement, but Hamori insists she has no fears about taking the fight.
“I’m not scared,” she said. “If she or he is a man, it will be a bigger victory for me if I win. So let’s do it. I can’t wait for that fight. In my club at home, I have only guys and male team-mates. It’s not new for me.
“It was Carini’s choice [to give up]. I don’t understand because I thought every boxer’s mind is the same like mine. Never give up. I know I won’t do this ever in my whole life.”
Carini has since told Italian publication Gazzetta dello Sport: “All this controversy makes me sad. I'm sorry for my opponent, too. If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.”
Neither Khelif, nor Lin identify as transgender - both were born women and have always identified as such - but the International Boxing Association (IBA), which runs the sport’s World Championships, said its unspecified sex test had ruled both ineligible for women’s competition.
The IBA, however, does not run the Olympic tournament any more, having been stripped of that right by the IOC in 2019.
A spokesman for the IOC, Mark Adams, on Thursday gave a fresh defence of the decision to allow Lin and Khelif to compete in Paris.
“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport,” he said. “This is not a transgender case.
“On that there is consensus. Scientifically, this is not a man fighting a woman.”
He added: “Everyone wants a black and white solution which does not exist, neither in the scientific community nor anywhere else.
“I know some of the athletes who underwent sex tests in their teens. It was pretty disgraceful and luckily that is behind us.
“What I would urge is that we try to take the culture war out of this and actually address the issues and the people, and think about the individuals concerned and the real damage that is being done by misinformation.”
