Two boxers – banned from the world championships for being deemed biologically male – have been cleared to compete at the Olympics as women.
A row has erupted in Paris after it emerged that Imane Khelif, of Algeria, and Lin Yu-Ting, of Taiwan, were thrown out of the tournament last year amid questions over their biological sex.
Now, one former Olympian has claimed that gender ideology ‘will get women KILLED’ while Northern Ireland great Barry McGuigan described the situation as ‘shocking’.
IOC bosses say both meet eligibility criteria and will box over the coming days.
The pair were disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in March of 2023 in New Delhi after a series of DNA tests were ordered amid concerns over the sex of some of those taking part.
At the time Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) claimed the tests had proven the athletes – including Khelif and Yu-Ting, who will both fight later this week – had ‘XY chromosomes’. He added that they ‘uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women’.
But the IBA has been stripped of the right to run Olympic boxing competitions amid concerns over governance and the IOC say all athletes involved are eligible to compete, wih current rules viewed as more relaxed than those of the IBA.
Following last year’s ban, the Algerian Olympic Committee hit back, claiming the disqualification was part of a ‘conspiracy’ to stop them from winning a gold meal and said ‘medical reasons’ were behind high testosterone levels.
After the disqualification, Mexico’s Brianda Tamara came forward with her own experience of fighting Khelif earlier in the tournament.
‘When I fought with her I felt very out of my depth,’ she wrote on X. ‘Her blows hurt me a lot, I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized.’
But Khelif, a welterweight, is due to fight Italy’s Angela Carini on Thursday, with Yu-Ting, a featherweight, in action on Friday.
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