TAIPEI: Taiwanese Olympic boxing champion Lin Yu-ting will undergo compulsory gender testing ahead of next month’s world championships in Liverpool.
Lin and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif were embroiled in a gender controversy during the 2024 Paris Olympics where both athletes secured gold medals in their respective weight categories.
World Boxing announced on Wednesday that female competitors must undergo “mandatory sex testing” under a new policy effective immediately.
“They announced that everyone must submit, so we will submit as well,“ Lin’s coach Tseng Tzu-chiang said.
“If you want to compete you have to follow the rules of the competition. Since we are participating, we will go by their rules.”
The new policy requires athletes over 18 to undergo PCR genetic testing to determine their sex at birth for World Boxing-sanctioned competitions.
Both Lin and Khelif competed at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without controversy though neither won medals during that event.
The International Boxing Association excluded both boxers from its 2023 world championships after claiming they failed gender eligibility tests.
The International Olympic Committee permitted their participation in Paris, describing their previous exclusion as “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”.
Neither athlete identifies as transgender, with both having been born and raised as women according to their passport documentation.
World Boxing will organise the boxing competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after receiving provisional recognition from the IOC. – AFP