Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting has guaranteed herself a medal after securing victory over Bulgaria’s Svetlana Kamenova Staneva in the women’s 57kg quarterfinals yesterday.
Lin has been the subject of an ongoing controversy in this year’s Olympic boxing event, after the International Boxing Federation (IBA) claimed at last year’s world championships that she and Algerian fighter Imane Khelif failed an unspecified eligibility test, although it has not given further details.
The pair are allowed to fight under guidelines over gender eligibility by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which said Sunday the tests conducted by the IBA were not legitimate and lacked credibility after Khelif and Lin were “carted off and tested” because there were “suspicions.” against them.
“I need hardly say if we start acting on suspicions against every athlete or whatever, then we go down a very bad route,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said. “Those tests are not legitimate tests. The tests themselves, the process of the tests, the ad hoc nature of the tests are not legitimate.
“The whole process is flawed. From the conception of the test, to how the test was shared with us, to how the tests have become public, is so flawed that it’s impossible to engage with it.”
Adams confirmed that the IOC received a letter in June from the IBA that the 3 Wire Sports website reported concerned Khelif and Lin.
