Olympic gender scandal: Calls for legal action over IOC decisions

Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting representing Taiwan will fight for the gold medal in their weight categories at the Paris Olympics. However, their presence at the competition remains controversial due to a gender scandal involving both competitors.

In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) excluded both athletes from participating in the Women's World Championships after chromosome tests allegedly showed they were not eligible to compete.

The International Olympic Committee allowed them to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris, noting that their birth certificates and passports indicate they are women. Moreover, the tests conducted by the IBA were deemed unreliable.

According to Sharron Davies, the opponents of both boxers at the Olympics were too scared to challenge the match results. She believes they should take legal action.

You’d like to think that there ought to be [a route to legal challenge], from a duty of care perspective. It is the job of any organisation, whether that is a school or a sports club or a governing body, or, in fact, a world governing body like the IOC, to have a responsibility to safety. At the moment they are definitely negligent in this area when it comes to female athletes. They are not considering the damage, the potential damage, of putting a male athlete in with a female athlete. So if I was one of those female athletes, I would be trying to pursue this for sure. The problem we’ve got is that these female athletes are very young. They are very intimidated. They are very silenced. And the IOC puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the government and the national associations to make their athletes sign documentation which stops them, which takes away their voices. And that is also a problem that we have - stated the former swimmer.

This is another controversy that has arisen between Khelif and Lin. Previously, Russian IBA head Umar Kremlev voiced his opinion on the matter. During a press conference, he called the boxers "men," claiming they had failed gender tests.

The International Boxing Federation explained that Khelif and Yu-ting possess XY sex chromosomes, typically present in most men. At the same time, it emerged that the Olympians have testosterone level disorders, so the IBA's statement does not mean they are men, as Kremlev claimed.