President of breakaway boxing association supports IOC's handling of gender issues at the Paris Olympics
VILLEPINTE, France: The head of the governing body hoping to host the next Olympic boxing tournament said he supported the IOC's entry requirements for the Paris Olympics and urged those less versed in gender issues to leave those decisions to medical professionals and scientists.
World Boxing President Boris Van Der Vorst also told the Associated Press on Thursday that his organization will always put athlete safety first when developing its own health and gender policies, while recognizing that in combat sports, additional considerations are sometimes needed to protect all athletes.
Van Der Vorst continues to disagree with critics of the IOC's handling of the Olympic tournament, particularly the eligibility of boxers Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting from Taiwan.
“I think it's very important that we respect the people who are eligible to compete here,” Van Der Vorst said. “I think it's a very sad situation for all boxers, for everyone involved here.”
The now-defunct International Boxing Association (IBA), which World Boxing is seeking to replace, claimed that both fighters failed gender eligibility tests for the 2023 World Championships, despite both having competed in amateur boxing for years.
Khelif won her first fight in Paris on Thursday when her opponent, Italy's Angela Carini, retired after just 46 seconds. Although Carini said she was not making a political statement about Khelif, Carini's tearful stoppage of the fight became a global sensation on social media and in the Western culture wars.
“What happened today should not have happened like this,” Van Der Vorst told AP. “The pressure that social media, the press and everyone else is exerting is not very helpful and it gets on everyone's nerves.”
The criticism of the two boxers is partly based on the policies and decisions of the IBA, which has not been part of the Olympic movement since 2019 after years of concerns at the IOC about its governance, integrity and financial transparency.
The IBA disqualified Khelif from its World Championships because she allegedly had elevated testosterone levels and stripped Lin of a bronze medal because she allegedly failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.
Van Der Vorst's World Boxing is a coalition of several dozen nations that split from the IBA after an internal power struggle failed to oust Russian President Umar Kremlev. An IOC working group has run the last two Olympic boxing tournaments.
If World Boxing is approved to become the sport's Olympic governing body, it will be responsible for major tournaments during the Olympic cycle. If World Boxing is unsuccessful, boxing will likely be dropped from the Olympic program.
Van Der Vorst said that given the unique physical demands and dangers of boxing, it was “too early” to know the World Boxing Federation's exact guidelines on gender identity.
“First and foremost, it's about safety,” said Van Der Vorst. “But I think in a combat sport, there can be other reasons for how to deal with such situations.”
The IOC used rules from 2016 to determine the gender eligibility of boxers, while several Olympic sports federations have updated their gender rules in the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. The athletics governing body also tightened rules for athletes with differences in gender development last year.
“We will ask our medical committee to come up with guidelines as soon as possible after these Games and they are already doing so,” Van Der Vorst said. “But they still have to finalise their guidelines and the general issue is very complicated. You need good tests, not only the gender tests but also the medical tests. And more importantly, I think that's not up to you and me. It's up to the (professional) people involved (in the testing).”
Van Der Vorst and other members of his organization are in Paris as observers – and occasionally as recruiters for other nations to join the only governing body that has a chance of keeping boxing on 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 procedures for the major tournaments it hopes to host, including the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal, and the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Both Taiwan and Algeria are still IBA members, but Lin competed in a World Boxing invitational tournament in Pueblo, Colorado, last spring, losing her opening bout to Brazilian Olympian Jucielen Romeu.
Van Der Vorst left the eventful day disappointed with the wild conclusions and speculation circulating on social media about both fighters.
“I have not seen a single test that proves that (the boxers) are transgender,” Van Der Vorst said. “For that reason, it is not very respectful to the boxers who compete here … to talk about them in that way. That is what I want to stress. If there is evidence, yes, that is a different situation. But I have not seen anything that proves that.”
