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August 01, 2024

Olympic boxing

The Olympics at last gives us the opportunity to watch a man beating the shit out of a woman in the boxing ring. Ah, the sporting life! Here's Olympic spokesman Mark Adams justifying the decision to allow two men - Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif - to compete against women: it says they're women on their passports, and anyway - the familiar excuse - it's all incredibly complex. People have been happily distinguishing between men and women for all of human history, but now, suddenly, it's "incredibly complex".

Even the IBA - the International Boxing Association - felt obliged to issue a dissenting statement:

On 24 March 2023, IBA disqualified athletes Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships New Delhi 2023. This disqualification was a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA Regulations. This decision, made after a meticulous review, was extremely important and necessary to uphold the level of fairness and utmost integrity of the competition.

Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors....

Our Committees have rigorously reviewed and endorsed the decision made during the World Championships. While IBA remains committed to ensuring competitive fairness in all of our events, we express concern over the inconsistent application of eligibility criteria by other sporting organizations, including those overseeing the Olympic Games. The IOC’s differing regulations on these matters, in which IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety.

One wonders what this confidential "separate and recognized test" was, that ruled these two out of contention. Pulling down their pants and having a look at their genitals, perhaps?

[Added: it seems likely that these two, Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif, have the same developmental disorder as Caster Semenya - so, yes, probably no or tiny male genitalia, but XY chromosomes and male levels of testosterone after the usual male puberty.]

A protest is planned.

Update: 

The controversial fight between Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who failed a sex test at last year’s World Championships, and Italy’s Angela Carini has been abandoned after just 46 seconds after the Italian suffered a suspected broken nose.

This fight had already detonated ferocious controversy, with the International Olympic Committee under mounting pressure to explain how a woman could be allowed into a boxing ring unsure of the sex of the person she was facing.

Khelif was banned from competing in a gold-medal bout in Delhi by the International Boxing Association, who said that the fighter’s “elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria”.

And yet she was still permitted by the IOC to fight at these Olympics and the difference in power was clear from the beginning, with the Italian taking a punch to the face and immediately walking to her corner to signal she would not carry on.

 

Posted at 09:58 AM |

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