International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has defended boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting competing at Paris 2024, saying there was “never any doubt” they are women.
The participation of Algeria’s Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin has proved controversial given they were disqualified from the 2023 World Championships.
The Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA), which was the previous organiser of Olympic boxing, removed them from that competition after it claimed they had failed gender eligibility tests.
“Let’s be very clear, we are talking about women’s boxing,” said Bach at Saturday’s daily IOC briefing.
“We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised as a woman, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as a woman.
“This is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.”
Both Khelif and Lin, who have always competed in the women’s division and are recognised by the IOC as female athletes, have reached the quarter-finals of their respective weight categories.
Khelif, 25, beat Angela Carini in the first round of the welterweight competition as the Italian abandoned their bout after 46 seconds.
Carini said on Thursday she ended the fight to “preserve her life”, but apologised to her opponent on Friday, saying “if the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision”.
Lin, 28, beat Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova in the featherweight category on Friday.
The IBA has been a vocal critic of the IOC’s decision to permit Khelif and Lin to compete, while the IOC has raised doubts over the accuracy of the IBA’s tests.
“What we see now is that some want to own the definition of who is a woman,” added Bach.
“There I can only invite them to come up with a scientific-based, new definition of who is a woman and how can somebody being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman.
“If they are coming up with something, we are ready to listen, we are ready to look into it, but we will not take part in a sometimes politically-motivated, cultural war.
“Allow me to say that what is going on in this context in social media with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse fuelled by this agenda is totally unacceptable.”
Imane’s father, Omar Khelif, told Sky News: “My child is a girl.”
He added: “She was raised as a girl. She’s a strong girl. I raised her to be hard-working and brave. She has a strong will to work and to train.
“The Italian opponent she faced was unable to defeat my daughter because my daughter was stronger and she was softer.”
