Breakaway boxing body president backs IOC's handling of gender issues at Paris Olympics
VILLEPINTE, France: The president of the governing body hoping to stage the next Olympic boxing tournament said he supported the IOC’s eligibility policies for the Paris Games and urged those without a deep understanding of gender issues to leave such decisions to medical and scientific professionals.
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 health and gender policies, while acknowledging that combat sports sometimes require extra considerations to protect all athletes.
Van Der Vorst still strongly disagrees with critics of the IOC's handling of the Olympic tournament, particularly regarding the eligibility of Algerian boxers Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting.
“I think it’s very important that when people are eligible to compete here, we have to respect them,” Van Der Vorst said. “I think it’s a very sad situation for all the fighters, for everyone involved here.”
The now-banned International Boxing Association, which World Boxing hopes to replace, said both fighters failed gender eligibility tests for the 2023 world championships, after both had competed in amateur boxing for many years.
Khelif won her first match in Paris on Thursday when her opponent, Italy's Angela Carini, retired after just 46 seconds. Although Carini said she wasn't making a political statement about Khelif, Carini's tearful exit became a global sensation on social media and in the West's culture wars.
“What happened today, it shouldn't happen this way,” Van Der Vorst told the AP. “The pressure that's on social media, on the press, on everybody else, it's not very helpful and it's getting into everybody's heads.”
Criticism of the two boxers is based in part on the policies and decisions of the IBA, which withdrew from the Olympic movement in 2019 following years of IOC concerns about its leadership, integrity and financial transparency.
The IBA disqualified Khelif from the world championships because of what it said were elevated testosterone levels and stripped Lin of the bronze medal because it said she had failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.
Van Der Vorst's World Boxing is an alliance of several dozen nations that broke away from the IBA after an internal power struggle failed to oust its Russian president, Umar Kremlev. An IOC task force has run the last two Olympic boxing tournaments.
If World Boxing wins approval to become the sport's Olympic governing body, it will be responsible for major tournaments during the Olympic cycle. If World Boxing fails to do so, boxing will likely be dropped from the Olympic program.
Van Der Vorst said it was “too early” to know exactly what World Boxing's policies on gender identity are, given the unique physical demands and dangers of boxing.
“Safety first,” Van Der Vorst said. “But I think with a combat sport, there could be other reasons why you’re going to run into these situations.”
The IOC has used the 2016 rules to determine the gender eligibility of boxers, while several Olympic sports governing bodies have updated their gender rules in the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. The governing body for track and field last year also tightened its rules for athletes with differences in sexual development.
“We will appoint our medical committee as soon as possible after these Games to establish the policy, and they are already in the process,” Van Der Vorst said. “But they have to finalize their policy, and the overall issue is very complicated. You have to have good tests, not only gender tests, but also medical tests. Most importantly, I think it's not up to you and me. It's up to the (professional) people who are involved (in the testing).”
Van Der Vorst and other members of his organization are in Paris as observers and, occasionally, recruiters of other nations to join the only governing body with 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 dynamics of major tournaments it hopes to host, including the Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal, in 2026 and the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
Both Taiwan and Algeria are still members of the IBA, but Lin competed in a World Boxing invitational tournament in Pueblo, Colo., last spring. She lost her opening bout to Brazilian Olympian Jucielen Romeu.
Van Der Vorst ended an eventful day disappointed by the rash conclusions and speculation spread on social media about both fighters.
“I haven't seen a single test that proves that (the boxers are) transgender,” Van Der Vorst said. “That's why it's not very respectful for the boxers who compete here… to talk about them in those terms. That's what I'm trying to point out. When there's evidence, yes, it's a different situation. But I haven't seen anything that proves that.”
