In an emotional interview with Algerian media on Sunday night, Imane Khelif, 25, one of the two female boxers at the centre of an Olympic gender controversy, called on the public to “avoid bullying all athletes”. She and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting continue to be the target of intense scrutiny and unfounded allegations about their gender and eligibility to fight in women’s boxing.
Khelif and Lin: Female Olympians face unfounded scrutiny
For many years, especially during the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics, Khelif and Lin have been fierce rivals in the women’s division. Neither athlete identifies as transgender or intersex—terms used to describe people whose sex traits do not exactly fit into the male-female binary.
Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said, “We have two boxers who have competed for many years as women, who were nurtured as women, who were born as women, and who have a passport bearing their gender.”
Despite the controversy surrounding their participation, Khelif and Lin have been authorized to compete in the women’s matches at the Olympics in Paris.
They were eliminated from the Women’s World Boxing Championships last year by the International Boxing Association, which Russians dominate. The athletes allegedly failed gender-neutral testing, according to the association, which revealed they possessed male chromosomes.
When Khelif defeated the only boxer from Russia last year, the International Boxing Association decided to disqualify the fighters.
The organization run by its president Umar Kremlev, a Russian who is supposedly close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has come under increasing criticism in recent years.