{"id":2224,"date":"2024-08-01T23:02:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T23:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2024-08-01T23:02:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T23:02:12","slug":"olympic-boxer-who-faced-gender-eligibility-claim-wins-igniting-outcry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=2224","title":{"rendered":"Olympic boxer who faced gender-eligibility claim wins, igniting outcry"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Algeria\u2019s Imane Khelif beats Italy\u2019s Angela Carini in opening bout, social media erupts with criticism citing disqualifications from last year\u2019s world championships.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

PARIS \u2014 An outcry erupted at\u00a0the Paris Olympics<\/a>\u00a0around the presence of two female boxers who were disqualified by the International Boxing Association at last year\u2019s world championships in New Delhi for what the organization\u00a0said\u00a0<\/a>at the time was a failure \u201cto meet eligibility rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

IBA President Umar Kremlev\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the Russian news agency Tass last year the disqualifications were because \u201cit was proven they have XY chromosomes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The issue, which had been simmering for a few days around the Games, blew up Thursday after one of the two women, Algeria\u2019s Imane Khelif, won her opening bout in Villepinte. Her opponent, Angela Carini, quit less than a minute into the 66-kg (145.5-pound) round-of-16 bout following a powerful punch to her nose.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

It remains unclear what standards Khelif and Lin Yu Ting of Taiwan failed last year to lead to the disqualifications.<\/p>\n

The IOC, which is overseeing the boxing competition in Paris, does not test for gender, and there never has been evidence that either Khelif or Lin had XY chromosomes or elevated levels of testosterone. They have competed for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics and several world championships.<\/p>\n

\n

In his comments to Tass in 2023, Kremlev said two boxers were given DNA tests. In the\u00a0minutes<\/a>\u00a0of the IBA\u2019s board of director\u2019s meeting held two days after the women were disqualified, George A. Yerolimpos, the organization\u2019s CEO and secretary general at the time, told the attendees the women had failed tests conducted by an independent laboratory. He also told the meeting\u2019s attendees that both women had failed a different test, conducted by a different laboratory, at the previous year\u2019s world championships in Istanbul, but that the results had come too late for the fighters to be disqualified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

The meeting\u2019s minutes do not say what kind of test had been administered or the name of the laboratory. Yerolimpos told the meeting that he \u201cclosely followed\u201d the women\u2019s testing as soon as they arrived in India.<\/p>\n

\n

In a statement this week, the IBA\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0the women did not \u201cundergo a testosterone examination\u201d but \u201ca separate and recognized test.\u201d The statement added that the test and results are \u201cconfidential.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

In\u00a0a statement issued Thursday evening<\/a>, the IOC said: \u201cThe current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure \u2014 especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years. Such an approach is contrary to good governance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

Throughout the week, IOC officials have said they had no reason to keep either boxer from the Olympics. Several times, IOC spokesman Mark Adams has cautioned that the controversy involves \u201creal people\u201d and stressed that \u201cthis is not a transgender issue\u201d in the face of attacks from critics of transgender athletes.<\/p>\n

\n

A person with knowledge of last year\u2019s disqualifications from worlds but not authorized to speak publicly called Khelif and Lin\u2019s banishments \u201cclassic IBA disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Three people familiar with the details of the women\u2019s case pointed out that the disqualifications came three days after Khelif defeated Russian Azalia Amineva and a day after she won her semifinal bout in the 63-66-kg (139-145.5-pound) category.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

Fed up by a history of judging and bribery scandals involving the IBA even before Kremlev was first elected as the organization\u2019s president in 2020, the IOC took control of Olympic boxing at the Tokyo Games. It became\u00a0suspicious\u00a0<\/a>when Kremlev spent heavily on marketing himself, lined up only one sponsor \u2014 Russian energy company Gazprom \u2014 and battled with Olympic leaders. The IOC took control of the boxing competition at the Paris Games as well, and it left the sport off the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n

\n

Three months after Lin and Khelif were disqualified, the IOC\u00a0decertified<\/a>\u00a0the IBA. Another organization, World Boxing, supported by the United States, the Netherlands and several other Western countries, has emerged as a potential replacement for the IBA. In the 14 months since, relations between the IOC and IBA have deteriorated further.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

On Wednesday, Kremlev\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0a video on X, criticizing the Paris Games Opening Ceremonies and calling IOC President Thomas Bach \u201ca chief sodomite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the suspect credibility of last year\u2019s disqualifications and the fact that neither boxer is transgender, several high-profile critics of transgender athlete issues seized on the results of the fight as well as comments made by Carini, who told reporters: \u201cIt could be the match of my life, but in that moment, I had to safeguard my life, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Within an hour of the fight, social media was\u00a0alive with posts blasting Khelif and Lin<\/a>\u00a0as well as the IOC. In\u00a0comments<\/a>\u00a0to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the fight was unfair, baselessly citing Khelif\u2019s testosterone levels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0on X: \u201cThis is all on [the] IOC and those in power who make the rules. It\u2019s a travesty and makes a mockery of all Olympic sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Algeria\u2019s Imane Khelif beats Italy\u2019s Angela Carini in opening bout, social media erupts with criticism citing disqualifications from last year\u2019s world championships. PARIS \u2014 An outcry erupted at\u00a0the Paris … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2226,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/2226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}