A fighter who failed past gender eligibility tests won gold in the women’s Olympic featherweight final match on Saturday. Lin Yu-ting ...
A fighter who failed past gender eligibility tests won gold in the women’s Olympic featherweight final match on Saturday.
Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, 28, absolutely dominated 20-year-old fighter Julia Szeremeta of Poland, leaving the female fighter bloodied. Lin, who physically towered over Szeremeta, won the match in a unanimous decision.
“These two right now are not remotely on the same level,” one of the Olympic commentators noted during the match.
Lin is the second fighter who won gold in women’s Olympic boxing after gender tests revealed XY chromosomes, according to the International Boxing Association (IBA).
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) permitted Lin to compete in the women’s division despite failed gender tests in 2019 and 2023. The Olympics’ gender eligibility standard for boxing is based merely on a fighter’s passport.
“As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams stated at a press conference.
Adams also said that testosterone levels are not important to the IOC. “Many women can have testosterone which will be called ‘male levels’ and still be women and still compete as women,” he said. “This idea that you do one test for testosterone and that sorts everything out? Not the case, I’m afraid.”
The IBA, which the IOC no longer associates with, said two fighters, including Lin, were given gender tests after the IBA was made aware of concerns about safety from a number of fighters, coaches, and medical staffers.
“Both boxers were asked to take a further blood test,” IBA CEO Chris Roberts said at a press conference in Paris on Monday. “That happened the 23rd of March, the results came through and it demonstrated the chromosomes we refer to in competition rules that make both boxers ineligible.”
Roberts further explained that Lin had failed the chromosome test and was given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The IBA offered to pay the majority of the appeal, he noted. Lin, though, never appealed.
IBA President Umar Kremlev has criticized the IOC for permitting Lin and another boxer named Imane Khelif to compete with women following the failed tests. He said in a press release that he doesn’t understand why the IOC is “killing” women’s boxing and emphasized that “only eligible athletes should compete in the ring for the sake of safety.”
The IOC is standing by its position, calling the IBA “not credible,” and shaming people who have questioned the gender issue on the basis of fairness and safety.
“We will not take part in a politically motivated … cultural war,” IOC President Thomas Bach said at a press conference last weekend. “What is going on in this context in the social media with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse, and fueled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable.”
No comments