Olympic gold medal-winning boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan has been cleared to return to competition at the Asian Boxing Championships following a review of her sex eligibility.
World Boxing, the sport’s Olympic-level governing body, announced its decision Friday ahead of the Asian championships, which begin March 29 in Mongolia.
Advertisement
Lin and Imane Khelif of Algeria won gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics amid international scrutiny and misconceptions over both boxers’ sex. While both met the eligibility rules followed at the time by the IOC, which ran the Paris tournament, the two fighters’ success sparked a politically charged debate over those standards.
World Boxing took over as the sport’s governing body last year, and it implemented a sex eligibility policy last August requiring all fighters to take a one-time genetic test designed to identify the presence of a Y chromosome.
Lin has been absent from several international competitions since World Boxing introduced the test last summer. World Boxing didn’t specify the results of Lin’s test, but said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Boxing Association had mounted an appeal process for one of its boxers following a test last year.
“We recognize that this has been a difficult period for the boxer and the CTBA and appreciate the way they have approached the appeal process and their acknowledgement of World Boxing’s requirement to ensure that its eligibility policy, which is designed to deliver safety and sporting integrity, has been correctly implemented and followed,” World Boxing secretary general Tom Dielen said in a statement.
Advertisement
Khelif also has not competed in World Boxing-sanctioned events since the implementation of the test, but has periodically indicated she would like to return to the Olympic-level sport. Khelif also plans to make her professional boxing debut in April, but pro fighters are now allowed to compete in the Olympics.
Chromosome testing was common in Olympic sports during the 20th century, but was largely abandoned in the 1990s because of numerous ambiguities that couldn’t be easily resolved by the tests, collectively known as differences in sex development.
Along with its appeal process, World Boxing said it offers additional analysis and evaluation for athletes with Y chromosome genetic material who wish to compete in the women’s categories, including genetic screening, hormonal profiles, anatomical examination and further evaluation of endocrine profiles by medical specialists.
___
AP boxing: https://apnews.com/boxing
Read the full article here
