The International Olympic Committee Releases A Statement Defending Boxers Imane Khelif And Lin Yu-Ting After The International Boxing Association Claimed The Women Failed Their Gender-Eligibility Tests

Things are heating up in the boxing world!

Everything unfolded during the Paris Olympics when Algerian Imane Khelif defeated Italian boxer Angela Carini in the opening round. The match did not take long, lasting only 46 seconds. But, here’s when things get complicated. Last year, Khelif and Tawain’s Lin Yu-ting were both disqualified from the World Boxing Championship in New Delhi after failing the gender eligibility test.

However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed this week that the two boxers had been cleared to fight and compete in the Olympic Games. Of course, the match caused an uproar from social media users who called out the the committee for allowing Khelif to participate despite having “XY chromosomes.”

Shortly after, the International Boxing Association (IBA) released a statement saying that the tests “conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.” But, the IOC also shared a statement, defending the boxers for being included in the women’s competition and also had a few words for the IBA.

“We have seen in reports misleading information about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024,” IOC said. “The two athletes have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category, including the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships and IBA-sanctioned tournaments.”

The statement continued, “According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO. The IBA Board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also say that the IBA should ‘establish a clear procedure on gender testing.”

Additionally, IOC called IBA’s decision “arbitrary” and stated that they’re “saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving.”

“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,” IOC added.

IBA President Umar Kremlev says that during a IBA board meeting, the organization’s CEO George A. Yerolimpos told the members that the two boxers had failed their tests that were conducted by an independent laboratory. However, he also said the ladies failed a different test that were facilitated by another laboratory the previous year, but the results came in too late to disqualify them. Nonetheless, the standards at which the women failed, remains unknown at this time.