PARIS (AP) — Five French women boxers will miss the world championships starting on Thursday in England because of complications with new sex tests that are compulsory after a furor at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The French team said it was “with astonishment and indignation” its boxers cannot compete after missing a deadline to get the test results from England. The tests are prohibited in these sporting circumstances in France by a law protecting women’s privacy.
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World Boxing announced its mandatory testing policy on May 30 as a response to controversy last year in Paris, where Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan won gold medals amid a campaign to cast doubt on their eligibility.
Female boxers have to undergo a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test or an equivalent genetic screening test to determine their sex at birth.
The new boxing governing body — which was not involved in the Paris Olympics then was provisionally recognized by the IOC in February — suggested the French federation was responsible for the missed deadline ahead of the worlds in Liverpool.
“It is very disappointing for the boxers that some national federations have not been able to complete this process in time,” World Boxing said on Thursday in a statement.
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“(T)he organization has made it clear that testing will be the responsibility of national federations as they have the closest links and most access to their boxers and are best placed to manage the testing process.”
The French boxing federation said it was told to expect the results “within 24 hours and that we could therefore, without fail, present them when registering our boxers.”
The five boxers excluded were Romane Moulai, Wassila Lkhadiri, Melissa Bounoua, Sthélyne Grosy and Maëlys Richol.
Richol shared on her Instagram page a message by Estelle Mossely, a former candidate to lead the French boxing federation, calling for officials responsible to resign.
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Khelif also will not compete in Liverpool after failing to get an urgent interim ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport in her wider appeal against World Boxing’s testing mandate.
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