IOC defends handling of gender issues at the Paris Olympics, calls for abuse of athletes to stop

Imane Khelif's 48-second defeat of Italian Angelina has led to what the IOC branded as "aggression" against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

Khelif won her first Paris bout when her opponent, Angela Carini of Italy, quit after just 46 seconds. An extremely rare occurrence in Olympic boxing.

Even though Carini said she wasn't making a political statement about Khelif, Carini's tearful abandonment of the bout was quickly shared on social media.

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Carini didn't shake Khelif's hand after the referee formally raised it, but she cried in the ring after sinking to her knees. Minutes afterward, a still-tearful Carini said she quit because of the pain from those opening punches.

"I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said 'enough,' because I didn't want to, I didn't want to, I couldn't finish the match," Carini said.

Since the lopsided defeat, the IOC claims there have been many misrepresentations about Khelif and and Taiwan's Lin Yu Ting.

Khelif could clinch an Olympic medal with a victory in her quarter-final bout on Saturday against Anna Luca Hamori, Hungary's first Olympic women's boxer.

Lin begins her Paris run Friday when she fights Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in her opening bout after receiving a first-round bye as the No. 1 seed in the 57kg category.

After years of competition in amateur tournaments around the world, Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan suddenly have received massive scrutiny for their presence in Paris.

Gender test controversy

Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test, and her presence at the Paris Olympics has become a divisive issue.

Khelif is an accomplished amateur who won a silver medal at the International Boxing Association's 2022 world championships.

The IBA — which has been banned from the Olympics since 2019 after years of disputes with the IOC — disqualified her from last year's championships shortly before her gold-medal match because of what it claimed were elevated levels of testosterone.

Khelif's passport says she is female and her family have posted photos of a typical young girl in family photos, since the outcry erupted.

The Algerian Olympic Committee issued a statement condemning what it termed "lies" and "unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete, Imane Khelif, with baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets."

Lin won IBA world championships in 2018 and 2022, but the governing body stripped her of a bronze medal last year because it claimed she failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.

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In a statement, the IOC said all boxers competing in the women's competition in Paris complied with rules surrounding gender, in competition and during qualification.

The IOC described the decision to pull both fighters from the world championships as "a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA (International Boxing Association)".

"Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process," the statement read.

"This decision was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO. The IBA board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA regulations.

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The IOC also said the source of the prize money at the International Boxing Association was unclear and is one of the reasons why they withdrew its recognition of the IBA.

"The IBA was not prepared to transparently explain the sources of its financing or to explain its full financial dependency, at the time, on a single state-owned company, Gazprom," IOC said.

IBA responds

The IBA states the disqualification was based on tests performed at the IBA women's world boxing championships in Istanbul 2022 and the world boxing championships in New Delhi 2023.

The IBA clarified its position: "Lin Yu-ting did not appeal the IBA's decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), thus rendering the decision legally binding.

"Imane Khelif initially appealed the decision to CAS but withdrew the appeal during the process, also making the IBA decision legally binding."

The IOC is in charge of boxing in Paris because it has revoked the Olympic status of the IBA following years of governance problems, a lack of financial transparency and many perceived instances of corruption in judging and refereeing.

The IBA is controlled by president Umar Kremlev, who is Russian. He brought in Russian state-owned Gazprom as its primary sponsor and moved much of the IBA's operations to Russia.

The IBA has since lost more than three dozen members who have formed a new group called World Boxing, which hopes to be recognised by the IOC as the sport's governing body ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

The IBA has seized on the two boxers' presence in Paris to criticise the IOC.

The banned body issued a statement in which it claimed both boxers did not have a "testosterone examination" last year but were "subject to a separate and recognised test" for their disqualification. The IBA said the test's "specifics remain confidential," refusing to explain it.

The IBA disregarded IOC recommendations and allowed Russian fighters to compete at the 2023 world championships under the Russian flag.

The governing body then disqualified Khelif only after Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva during the tournament.

World Boxing disagrees with IOC critics

The head of the governing body that hopes to run the next Olympic boxing tournament said he supports the IOC's eligibility policies at the Paris Olympics, and he urged those without deep understandings of gender issues to entrust those determinations to medical professionals and scientists.

World Boxing president Boris Van Der Vorst also told The Associated Press that his organisation will always put athletes' safety first in developing its own policies on health and gender, while recognising that combat sports sometimes require extra considerations to protect all athletes.

Van Der Vorst still strongly disagrees with critics of the IOC's handling of the Olympic tournament, specifically the eligibility of Khelif and Lin Yu-ting.

"I think it's very important that when people are eligible to compete here, we have to respect them," Van Der Vorst said. "I think it's a very sad situation for all boxers, everyone involved here.

"What happened today, it shouldn't be happening like this," Van Der Vorst added. "The pressure that there is from social media, from the press, from everyone else, it's not very helpful, and it's getting into everyone's head."

Van Der Vorst's World Boxing is an alliance of several dozen nations who broke away from the IBA after an internal power struggle failed to oust Kremlev. An IOC task force has run the past two Olympic boxing tournaments.

If World Boxing gains approval to become the sport's Olympic governing body, it will be in charge of the major tournaments during the Olympic cycle. If World Boxing doesn't succeed, boxing likely will be dropped from the Olympic program.

Van Der Vorst said it's "too early" to know World Boxing's exact policies on gender identity, given the unique physical demands and dangers of boxing.

"First of all, safety above all," Van Der Vorst said. "But I think with a combat sport, there could be some other reasons how you are going to deal with these kinds of situations."

The IOC used rules from 2016 in determining boxers' gender eligibility, while several Olympic sports' governing bodies have updated their gender rules over the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union.

The governing body for track and field also last year tightened rules on athletes with differences in sex development.

"We will assign our medical committee as soon as possible after these Games to make policy, and they are already in progress," Van Der Vorst said. "But they have to finalize their policy, and the general issue is very complicated. You need to have good tests, not only the gender tests, but also the medical tests. More importantly, I think it's not up to you and I. It's up to the (professional) people who are involved in (the testing)."

Van Der Vorst and other members of his organisation are in Paris as observers — and, occasionally, recruiters of additional nations to join the only governing body with a chance of keeping boxing in the Olympic program when the IOC decides the sport's fate in early 2025. World Boxing currently has 37 members.

World Boxing is also studying the mechanics for the major tournaments that it hopes to run, including the Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal, in 2026 and the Los Angeles Games in 2028.

Both Taiwan and Algeria are still IBA members, but Lin competed in a World Boxing invitational tournament in Pueblo, Colorado, last year. She lost her opening bout to Brazilian Olympian Jucielen Romeu.

Van Der Vorst left the eventful day disappointed in the wild conclusions and speculation thrown across social media about both fighters.

Reaction

Italy coach Emanuele Renzini said he discussed the Khelif matchup with Carini and offered to allow her to back out earlier, but the boxer had been "very determined" to fight until the opening minute.

"I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said 'enough,' because I didn't want to, I didn't want to, I couldn't finish the match," Carini said.

"I just did my job as a boxer," Carini said. "I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometre."

Carini later received a visit from Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who consoled the boxer in a photo posted on Meloni's Instagram page.

"I know you won't give up, Angela," Meloni wrote, "and I know one day you will win what you deserve with effort and sweat. In a competition that is finally equal."

The woman tasked with taking on Khelif in the next round, the Hungarian, Hamori, expressed no concern about fighting the Algerian.

"I'm not scared," said Hamori, who trounced Marissa Williamson Pohlman of Australia. "I don't care about the press story and social media."

Hamori and Khelif have never sparred, but they have competed in the same tournament before. Hamori repeatedly said she isn't paying attention to the controversy because it's only a hindrance to her quest for gold.

"I'm trying to not use my phone before the fight," Hamori said. "I don't want to care about the comments or the story or the news. I just want to stay focused on myself. I did it before my last two fights, so I think this is the key, and we will see."

And Hamori could only shrug at Carini's decision to quit.

"It was her choice," Hamori said. "I don't understand, because I thought every boxer's mind is the same like mine, to never give up. But it was her choice. We don't know what was the reason. It's her life, but I know I want to do this in my own life."

- with AP, CNN