Taiwan’s Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting are in the eye of a storm after it emerged they were disqualified from the 2023 IBA World Championships for failing gender tests.

The Algerian Olympic Committee has accused the International Boxing Association of “unfounded claims” after the IBA on Monday said an Algerian boxer in the women’s semi-final in Paris was “a man”. Taiwan’s Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting are in the eye of a storm after it emerged they were disqualified from the 2023 IBA World Championships for failing to meet gender standards, without specifying what the tests were. Boxing in the French capital is governed by the International Olympic Committee due to financial, governance and ethics concerns within the IBA.

The IOC has cleared both boxers to compete and both are semi-finalists, so they are assured of medals. The two organizations are in open conflict.
An IBA press conference in Paris sought to clarify the tests Khelif and Lin underwent last year and what the results showed. IBA officials, including Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, the organization’s Kremlin-linked chairman who was on a remote video call, issued a series of contradictory statements before lots of journalists.
Officials said they are also bound by medical confidentiality.

What became clear was when Ioannis Filippatos, former president of the IBA medical committee, said he had detected “irregularities” in the blood tests of both boxers in 2022. IBA officials said both fighters were retested in 2023 to confirm the initial results and were subsequently disqualified.

“The medical results, the blood results, it appears – and the lab says – that this fighter is a man, Filippatos said.

“The problem is that we have two blood tests to find out the male karyotype. This is the lab’s response.

According to the National Human Genome Research Institute in the United States, a karyotype is an individual’s complete set of chromosomes.

It can also be a lab-generated image used to look for abnormalities in the number or structure of chromosomes.

The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee quickly responded by stating: “Algeria is not a member of the IBA. 

“We do not recognise the IBA as a legitimate organisation and it has no connection with the Olympics. »
“Our champion, Imane Khelif, remains indifferent and undeterred by the IBA’s baseless accusations.”

IOC President Thomas Bach and senior officials from Algeria and Taiwan have strongly defended Khelif and Lin, arguing that they were born and raised women and have passports to prove it.

The Olympic body, which has effectively expelled the IBA from the Olympic movement, has accused the IBA of making an “arbitrary decision”. “The content and the way the IBA press conference was held tells you everything you need to know about this organisation and its credibility,” the IOC told AFP after the IBA press conference.