By Aadi Nair and Layli Foroudi
PARIS (Reuters) – The Algerian and Taiwanese boxers embroiled in a row over gender in sport at the Paris Olympics were disqualified from the 2023 World Championships after a sex chromosome test ruled both of them ineligible, the International Boxing Association said on Monday.
A storm erupted over the participation of Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting at the Olympics after Khelif’s Italian opponent pulled out of their bout less than a minute into the fight after taking a barrage of punches.
The boxing competition at Paris 2024 is taking place under International Olympic Committee rules after the IOC stripped the IBA of its status as the global governing body for the boxing.
IBA chief executive Chris Roberts said he could not disclose the results of the gender eligibility tests but that the pair’s disqualification from the 2023 women’s World Championships meant the public could “read between the lines”.
“The results of the chromosome tests demonstrated both boxers were ineligible,” Roberts told reporters.
He said the results of the tests had been sent to the IOC in June last year and that it had done “nothing with it”.
The IOC says the IBA is a discredited organisation and has said the tests were ordered on arbitrary grounds.
“We are talking about women’s boxing. We have two boxers who were born as women, raised as women, who have passports as women and who have competed for many years as women and this is a clear definition of a woman,” IOC President Thomas Bach told a press conference on Saturday.
“There was never any doubt about them being women.”
The furore has swept social media and seen people such as J. K. Rowling and Tesla founder Elon Musk voice their opposition to the two boxers competing at the Games.
Khelif’s father said his daughter had brought honour to the family and described the attacks against her as “immoral”.
(Reporting by Layli Foroudi and Aadi Nair; writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Ken Ferris)
