Anwesha Dash, Pune
Amid the Olympics gender row where boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Algeria and Taiwan, respectively, have been accused of being biological men and fighting in women’s matches, IBA has now come forward with the allegation that both the boxers had failed their chromosome tests and hence were disqualified from World Boxing Championship (WBC). Both the IOC and the Algerian government have hit back.
The welterweight boxer, Imane Khelif, came under public scrutiny after her competitor, Angela Carini- an Italian boxer, left the arena claiming she had “never been hit harder.” This started an online campaign against Khelif, alleging that the boxer is a biological male and has had a sex change, which makes her entry into women’s sports unfair and unethical.
Information about Khelif and another boxer, Lin Yu-ting – a Taiwanese featherweight champion, came to light that they had been disqualified from the World Boxing Championship 2023 on certain grounds that still needed to be disclosed. The social media tirade against the two boxers claimed that their biological gender was the reason for the disqualification.
Supporting this claim, the International Boxing Association (IBA) which conducts the WBC, in a recent press conference stated that gender and chromosome testing were the grounds on which both Khelif and Lin were found ineligible to fight in the women’s category. Chris Roberts, chief executive of IBA, has accused the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of “doing nothing with it”, even though the results of the tests were notified to them prior to the Olympics. Roberts even stated that the IBA could not elaborate more on the test results because the respective governments warned them off.
Both the IOC and the Algerian government have refuted the claims made by the IBA. The former has called the boxing association a discredited source as it does not have the status anymore having debarred as a governing body due to corruption. The Olympics committee also maintained that both the boxers were born women, raised women, and had passports claiming so.
The Algerian government has also stated that they consider the IBA an illegitimate organisation with no linkage to the Olympics. Hence, they have called the association’s allegation against their athlete “baseless claims”.