PARIS: Lin Yu Ting, one of two female boxers who failed gender tests at the world championships last year, is guaranteed a Paris Olympics medal after beating Svetlana Kamenova Staneva in Sunday’s 57-kilogramme quarter-finals, reported German news agency (dpa).
Top seed Lin of Taiwan, which the International Olympic Committee calls Chinese Taipei, defeated the Bulgarian 5-0 on a unanimous points decision.
Algerian Imane Khelif, who like Lin was disqualified at the 2023 women’s world championships for not meeting gender eligibility requirements, is also certain of at least a bronze after beating Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori in Saturday’s 66 kg quarter-final.
After their semi-finals in the coming week, there is only a final and no third-placed bout. Both semi-final losers receive bronze.
IOC president Thomas Bach says “there was never any doubt” that the two boxers are women given they were raised as women, are women in their passports and have long competed as women.
They were kicked out of the 2023 worlds by the International Boxing Association (IBA). But the Olympic programme is not being run by the IBA after it was stripped of its IOC recognition due to governance issues. The IOC is effectively running the boxing itself.
Speculation is rife that their cases are similar to South Africa’s twice 800 m Olympic champion Caster Semenya, who some doctors have classed intersex. She is no longer allowed to run the 800 m without taking testosterone-suppressing medication.
Critics say this is a different issue as boxing is about punching and women are being put in danger by facing people in the ring with much larger muscles and power. - Bernama, dpa
