The International Boxing Association (IBA) on Monday said that two fighters participating in Olympic women’s boxing failed a gender chromosome test.
The IBA held a press conference to address the controversy surrounding Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan and Imane Khelif of Algeria. Despite both boxers previously failing IBA gender tests, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has permitted them to fight against biological females and has repeatedly issued statements claiming Yu-ting and Khelif are women.
IBA CEO Chris Roberts said during the presser that test results for the fighters “demonstrated the chromosomes we refer to in competition rules that make both boxers ineligible.”
Roberts further explained that Khelif and Yu-ting were informed that they tested for XY chromosomes and were given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The IBA, he said, offered to pay the majority of the appeal; Yu-ting did not appeal, and Khelif appealed initially but then withdrew the appeal.
Dr. Ioannis Filippatos, the former Chair of the IBA Medical Committee, also spoke to reporters, emphasizing that biology cannot be changed.
“Medicine is knowledge, it is not opinion,” Filippatos said, as reported by Reduxx. “One passport can give to us the opportunity to be men, and, tomorrow when I go back to Athens, it’s possible to go to my government and … change my name from Ioannis Filippatos to Ionnia Filippatos. That means I am a woman tomorrow? Please. The nature and the biological world do not change.”
Taking on a swarm of journalists’ questions, Dr. Filippatos asked the press why they were attacking him for talking about medical test results. “The blood results look and say — the laboratories — that this boxer is male,” he said.
The IOC, though, is standing by its position to allow the boxers to fight women.
“These athletes have been competing in senior competitions for six years with no issues,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said, according to ESPN. “These women were eligible for this contest, remain eligible for this contest and compete in this contest.”
“I cannot tell you if they were credible or not credible [gender tests] because the source from which they came was not credible and the basis for the tests was not credible,” Adams continued. “For that reason there was no consideration of whether they were correct or not correct because they had no bearing for the eligibility of boxing here.”
Khelif and Yu-ting have made it to the semifinals and are guaranteed to medal after quickly defeating female challengers.
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