One of the great controversies of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games This is taking place in the women’s boxing competition due to doubts about the gender of two boxers: Algerian Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-Ting. In fact, a tense moment occurred during the latter’s last fight when her opponent made a gesture to claim her female identity.
It happened at the end of the quarter-final fight in the under 57kg category. Bulgarian boxer Svetlana Staneva made her own unusual protest after the judges declared her Taiwanese opponent the winner: she pointed at herself and made the ‘X’ gesture with her fingers twice, referring to her XX or female chromosomes. She was thus accusing Lin of having the XY chromosome, which is usually male.
The 34-year-old Bulgarian lost the fight by unanimous points decision in the quarter-finals of the 57kg women’s featherweight division. She had lost the chance to fight for medals and, frustrated, avoided eye contact with Lin before using her incised fingers to make the cross symbol while shouting “no, no” pointing at herself.
The International Boxing Association accused Lin Yu-Ting of being a man after she failed gender eligibility tests at the world championships in India last year. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did clear her to compete at the Games.
Lin closes his networks
After the fight, the Taiwanese did not want to comment on her rival’s gestures: “I have received many messages of support from my country and from the people of Paris. I appreciate them, but I have not been able to read them because I have closed my social networks.” Her victory guaranteed Lin and Imane Khelif a medal in Paris 18 months after they were disqualified from the Women’s World Championships for allegedly failing gender eligibility tests.
The note from his coach
Staneva, for her part, did not stop to speak to the press, leaving open the motive behind her gesture. Her trainer Borislov Georgiev did, according to the Washington Post. He walked around the press interview area with a handwritten note that read: “I only want to fight women. I am XX.”
“This is perhaps the message of every female boxer in this tournament,” Georgiev said. He claimed he wrote those words himself but suggested they were supported by Staneva before suggesting that Lin, the No. 1 seed, should not be allowed to fight in Paris.
“I’m not a medical professional who should say whether Lin could compete here or not. But when the tests show that he has the Y chromosome, he should not be here,” Georgiev added.
High testosterone
The Russian-backed International Boxing Association banned Khelif and Lin from competition in New Delhi in March 2023 on the grounds that they displayed elevated levels of testosterone and XY male chromosomes.
The IBA technical and competition rules of 13 May 2023 define a “woman/girl” as “an individual with an XX chromosome”.
Later, on June 5, 2023, the IBA sent a letter to the IOC to explain why they disqualified Khelif, explaining that their tests “concluded that the boxer’s DNA was that of a male composed of XY chromosomes.”
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