Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting, who was stripped of her bronze medal at last year’s International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Boxing Championships after failing a gender eligibility test, has been cleared to compete in Paris, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Monday.
Lin and Imane Khelif of Algeria, who had both been disqualified at the world championship in New Delhi in March last year, have complied with all rules to fight at the Games, the IOC said.
They are now to compete in their second Summer Games, after both finishing outside the podium at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Photo: AP
“All athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations,” the IOC said in a statement.
The 28-year-old Lin is a two-time worlds gold medalist, winning in the bantamweight (under-54kg) category in New Delhi in 2018 and in the featherweight (under-57kg) competition in Istanbul in 2022. She won bronze in featherweight in 2019.
The 25-year-old Khelif won a silver at the 2022 tournament.
Both were removed from their competitions in New Delhi last year at the world championships run by the IBA, which has been banished from Olympic boxing since before the Tokyo Games.
The different status of Lin and Khelif at the Olympics and worlds is fallout from the years-long dispute between the IOC and the Russian-led IBA over alleged failures of governance and integrity, plus reliance on funding from state energy firm Gazprom.
An IOC-run database of about 10,700 athletes competing in Paris detailed both boxers’ experiences at last year’s worlds.
Lin “was stripped of her bronze medal [by the IBA] after failing to meet eligibility requirements based on the results of a biochemical test,” the database says.
At the time, the IBA said her testosterone level did not meet the designated standard.
Khelif was disqualified “just hours before her gold medal showdown” against a Chinese opponent “after her elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria.”
The IOC has appointed officials to run boxing at two straight Summer Games and on Monday said the tournament rules for Paris are “descended from” those in place eight years ago at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Boxing officials picked to run Paris qualifying and finals tournaments tried “to restrict amendments to minimize the impact on athletes’ preparation and guaranteeing consistency between Olympic Games,” the IOC said.
Lin, who got a first-round bye as the top seed in the featherweight category, would have her opening bout on Friday in the round of 16.
The Taiwanese has been confronted with questions over her femininity for many years.
Although she was cleared with follow-up tests in Taiwan, she “lost it” after reading insults directed at her on social media, her coach, Tseng Tzu-chiang, said.
“I told her: ‘If you trust me, then give me your mobile phone, say nothing to them and get some sleep. I will tackle this for you and with you,’” Tseng told the Central News Agency in an interview published last week.
Her gender eligibility was unsuccessfully challenged six months after New Delhi at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, where she went on to win a gold medal in the featherweight category.
Lin said she sometimes gets asked if she went to the wrong restroom or if her height (1.75m) and short hairstyle contributed to the misconception.
Local media have often framed her success as breaking gender stereotypes, but she said that has never been her goal.
“Actually, what I have been doing is being myself... I want to focus on my performance in the ring,” she said. “If I wore my hair long, I would have to spend too much time tending to it and have no time to rest between morning and afternoon training sessions. How could I perform well that way?”
“All I can do is prepare and try my best to ignore what the haters say. After all, where were they after the Asian Games?” she said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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