The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has slammed criticism of two athletes who failed the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) gender test for 2023, saying it was “offensive” to question their right to compete as women.
At the time, IBA president Umar Kremlev explained the IBA’s decision to disqualify these boxers from the 2023 World Boxing Championships, according to Russia’s TASS news agency: “Based on DNA tests, it became clear that several athletes tried to deceive their colleagues by posing as women. The tests proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes have been excluded from competition,” Kremlev said. Said.
Aggression was certainly on display on Thursday, when Algeria’s Imane Kherif, one of two fighters to fail the IBA’s gender test in 2023, beat Italian female fighter Angela Carini so hard that Carini withdrew from the bout after less than a minute.
Angela Carini’s Olympic dreams were dashed today by male boxer Imane Kheriff.
It is suspected that he broke her nose.
This cannot be tolerated in silence. Men cannot be allowed to beat women in sports.
Save women’s sports. pic.twitter.com/i5GMdgWrwb
— Hazel Appleyard (@HazelAppleyard_) August 1, 2024
“I’ve never been punched like that before. I can’t continue,” Carini told reporters as he collapsed to the canvas in tears before leaving the ring.
A complete farce at the Olympics.
Angela Carini is forced to box against a biological male, she withdraws after just 45 seconds and cries hysterically when her opponent is declared the winner.
Don’t look away. This is an awakening. pic.twitter.com/wOkVRs88t5
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 1, 2024
Yet, despite the clear disproportionateness of Kherif’s strength compared to Olympic-level female athletes, the IOC strongly condemned the IBA’s decision to disqualify the Algerian and stepped up its defense of Kherif’s right to compete in Paris.
“We have become aware of misleading information being published about two female athletes who will compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics,” the company said in a statement. Joint statement From the Paris Boxing Unit and the IOC: “Both athletes have many years of experience competing in international boxing competitions in the women’s category, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships and other IBA-sanctioned tournaments.”
The committee blamed the IBA’s decision to disqualify Kheriff and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting on flawed testing policies.
Both athletes were victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA, who suddenly disqualified them without due process as they neared the end of the 2023 IBA World Championships.
by IBA Minutes The decision, which is available on the website, was initially made solely by the IBA Executive Director and CEO. The IBA Board subsequently endorsed the decision, which then requested that a procedure be established to be followed in future similar cases and reflected in IBA regulations. The minutes also state that the IBA needs to “establish clear procedures regarding sex testing.”
The committee then zeroed in on the “attacks” carried out against the two militants.
“The current attack against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was made without due process, particularly given that these two athletes have competed at the highest level of competition for many years.”
“Such an approach runs counter to good governance.”
While it’s true that much of the criticism of Kheriff and Yuting was based on concerns about Kheriff’s 2023 disqualification before he fought Kalini on Thursday, the far greater outrage since then has been based on Kheriff hitting the Olympic athlete so hard that she was eliminated from her lifelong pursuit of Olympic gold in just 46 seconds.
Khelib is scheduled to face Hungary’s Anna-Luka Hamori on Saturday.
