PARIS.- The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Sunday that arbitrary tests on female boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, which sparked a controversy by wrongly identifying the two fighters as transgender — or even as men — were “so flawed as to be impossible to take into account.”
International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams has again strongly defended Algeria’s Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin and criticised the banned International Boxing Association (IBA), which said the boxers failed eligibility tests for women’s competition.
The two athletes were “scrutinised” during the 2023 World Championships because “there were suspicions against them”, Adams revealed, criticising the process that singled them out.
“It goes without saying that if we start acting on suspicion against every athlete for whatever reason, then we are going down a very bad path,” he said.
Adams rejected the evidence in its entirety.
“There are a whole host of reasons why we won’t take it into account,” Adams said. “Partly because of confidentiality. Partly because of medical reasons. Partly because there was no basis for the test in the first place. And partly because sharing this data is also against the rules, international rules.”
“The entire process is flawed,” Adams added. “From the conception of the test, to how it was shared with us, to how it was made public, everything is so flawed that it is impossible to take into account.”
Lin and Khelif are at the centre of a debate over gender identity and regulations in sports, with critics pointing to their declassifications last year after the AIB claimed they did not “meet the necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors”.
The governing body, which has enormous influence from Russia, received an unprecedented punishment by being permanently excluded from the Olympic Games last year and has not hosted an Olympic boxing tournament since the Rio de Janeiro games in 2016.
Adams confirmed that the IOC received a letter from the IBA regarding Khelif and Lin, as reported by news site 3 Wire Sports, which he said was sent last June.
Adams declined to reveal the content of the letter, but reiterated: “These analyses are not legitimate.”
“There was indeed a letter,” she said. “I am not going to discuss in public the individual intimate details of the athletes, which I think is very disgusting on the part of those who leaked that material. Frankly, it must be horrible to be in that position. On top of all the harassment on social media that these athletes have received.”
Absolute support
IOC President Thomas Bach sought to draw a line Saturday after days of controversy surrounding female boxers and what he called a politically motivated “culture war.”
“We have two boxers who were born as women, who were raised as women, who have a passport as women and who have competed for many years as women,” Bach said. “Some people want their own definition of who a woman is.”
Bach linked the furor to what he called a broader campaign by Russia against the IOC and the Paris Games, where only 15 Russian athletes are competing as neutrals. The IOC and governing bodies of a number of sports have isolated Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
“What we have seen from Russia and in particular from the IBA,” Bach said, “is that they have been carrying out a smear campaign against France, against the Games, against the IOC long before these Games.”
