Boxing is at risk of being dropped from the Olympics as Olympic chiefs call on the sport to improve its standing.
A gender controversy has erupted after questions were raised over the participation of Iman Khalif and Lin Yu-Ting in the women’s category at Paris 2024.
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Khalif’s opponent Angela Carini retired after just 46 seconds and it was revealed that the Algerian and Yu-Ting were excluded from last year’s IBA World Championships after failing gender eligibility tests.
Women’s rights activists have criticised organisers, but the IOC says every athlete taking part in the Games is eligible to compete.
Boxing is on the verge of being shut out of Los Angeles 2028 due to its deeply worrying management.
This means that there is no hope or reason for amateur athletes to participate in the long and painful Olympic cycle.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) Spokesperson I told: “As things stand, boxing is currently not included in the sports programme of the Olympic Games LA 28.
He said, “The IOC has made it clear that it cannot organise such Olympic boxing competitions again.
“To solve this problem, Olympic boxing should be organised by a credible, well-governed international federation. Discussions are ongoing in this regard.”
When Professor Richard McLaren examined 77 Rio 2016 bouts overseen by AIBA (amateur boxing’s former international governing body), he found “substantial” and “widespread” manipulation of the results.
Olympic Free Bets – Sign Up Offers and Deals for Paris 2024
But the subjective nature of scoring in bouts made it impossible to prove corruption or change the result.
The IOC suspended AIBA in 2019 and stripped them of their recognition altogether in 2023 – even after they attempted to rebrand themselves as the IBA.
But what hasn’t changed, perhaps most worryingly, is the man at the helm of this shadowy organisation.
Umar Kremlev, a Russian friend of Vladimir Putin, was elected president in 2022 and promised a revolution.
But entering into a sponsorship deal with Gazprom and throwing money around without payment is a red flag.
The IBA also attempted to ban Ukrainian boxers from representing their country and flag – while going against the rest of the world and supporting and promoting Russian and Belarusian boxers.
Any talented young British boxer who saw the blatant thrashing of Joe Joyce in 2016, or the questionably harsh decisions given to Delicious Orie, Rosie Eccles, Charlie Davison last week, would be forgiven for running a million miles away from their Olympic dream.
Because even if Ori had got a win over Armenia’s Davit Chaloyan, he was bound to lose to Bakhodir Jalolov due to his disappointing performance in the game where the 30-year-old Uzbek player, now a 14-0 professional, is still allowed to participate in amateur competitions and make a clean sweep.
The amazing modern achievements given to us by stars such as Audley Harrison, Amir Khan, James DeGale, Nicola Adams and Anthony Joshua – and which earned them a place in the salaried ranks – are now at risk of becoming a distant memory.
Olympic gender controversy
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has sparked a major controversy by allowing two women to participate in boxing who had earlier failed gender tests.
Iman Khalif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan have been disqualified from the Women’s World Championships to be held in New Delhi, India in March 2023.
Lin Yu-ting was stripped of the bronze medal for failing the gender eligibility test.
Khalif was disqualified after failing a testosterone level test in New Delhi.
Officials found that tests showed he had ‘XY chromosomes’ – indicating the person is biologically male.
Rare ‘intersex’ medical conditions, known medically as differences in sex development (DSDs), can also mean that outwardly female individuals can have ‘male’ chromosomes, or vice versa.
The Russia-led International Boxing Association organised that tournament but is no longer recognised by the IOC.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams said: “These athletes have competed many times before over many years, they didn’t suddenly turn up – they competed in Tokyo.
“The federation needs to create rules to make sure there is fairness, but at the same time it needs to allow everyone who wants to take part to participate. It’s a difficult balance.”
“At the end of the day the experts in each sport are the people who work in it. If there is a huge advantage then it is clearly not acceptable, but that decision has to be taken at that level.”
Both Khalifa and Lin competed at the delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. Lin is a two-time winner at the Asian Women’s Amateur Boxing Championships.
The IOC said all boxers in Paris “will comply with the eligibility and entry rules of the competition”.
BBC One refuses to broadcast boxing quarter-final over gender row to show gymnasticsThis controversy arose following the famous case of Caster Semenya.
Semenya, a South African middle-distance runner, has a condition that causes her body to produce higher levels of testosterone than women naturally do.
She won gold in the 800m at the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics, but was unable to compete at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics because World Athletics had then introduced new rules independently of the IOC.
It’s no surprise that 19-year-old heavyweight sensation Moses Itauma hasn’t been long in the making and he’s already 10-0 as a pro and turning heads on TNT.
Or the prodigy Adam Azim, now 22, who ditched the vest and headguard in 2020 to make an honest living from the sport on Sky.
Professional boxing is still a brutal business – a big ticket seller or a female boxer whose weight-measuring lingerie is more flashy than her fight sadly still often attracts more attention than big talent with a lower profile.
But fights take place every weekend across the country on various TV channels and streaming apps, and boxers can promote themselves across all media using their personality and punching skills.
The amateur sporting code – and the Olympics in particular – is considered the absolute pinnacle.
Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk and two-time Golden Boy Vasyl Lomachenko will all tell you that these gold medals mean more to them than every belt and pound note they have ever won.
But if the IOC is so upset with the way the sport is being run, what chance does Team GB’s performance director Rob McCracken – or any unknown amateur coach from Land’s End to John O’Groats – have of persuading young talent to dream of LA 2028 or Brisbane 2032?
Piers Morgan has his say
The matter is far more complex than the embarrassing transgender scandals that have surfaced in women’s sports in recent years.
Khalifa reportedly has a condition called Swyer syndrome, which means she has some female reproductive organs but also has much higher testosterone levels than a woman.
As a result, his physique is better than that of women, which can be seen from his tall, powerful physique.
In other words, he has an unfair advantage.
And that’s why there has been such a strong reaction, led by J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk and Martina Navratilova, to footage of Carini leaving the event after being punched in the face.
The clear, undeniable, medical and scientific truth is that anyone born with any type of male biology has a clear physical advantage over biological females.
This is why we keep the sexes separate at the Olympics.
Otherwise, women would have barely won a single medal.
To pretend otherwise is to be either completely confused or deliberately dishonest.
*Read Piers Morgan’s full article on Iman Khalifa…
Hopefully some big changes will come soon.
Since the I.O.C. ousted the I.B.A., a rival federation, World Boxing, has been set up, supported by 37 countries – including Great Britain and the United States – and the number is growing.
It is committed to proper governance and transparent financial management.
Read more at The Scottish Sun
While it appears to have some support from the IOC, it has yet to receive formal recognition.
So, more worrying than the disappointing medal count compared to our past spectacular achievements, is the fact that the future of Olympic amateur boxing is uncertain and our young lions may decide it is better for them to stay out of it.
Full statement from the IOC and Paris 2024 Boxing Unit
A look at the full statement released by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Paris 2024 boxing unit…
Every individual has the right to play sports without any discrimination.
All athletes participating in the Olympic Games Paris 2024 boxing tournament must comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry rules, as well as all applicable medical regulations set out by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU). As in previous Olympic boxing competitions, athletes’ gender and age are based on their passports.
These rules also apply during the qualification period, which includes the boxing tournaments at the 2023 European Games, Asian Games, Pan American Games and Pacific Games, the 2023 ad hoc African qualifying tournament in Dakar (SEN) and the two world qualifying tournaments held in Busto Arsizio (ITA) and Bangkok (THA) in 2024, which involved a total of 1,471 different boxers from 172 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the Boxing Refugee Team and individual neutral athletes and included over 2,000 qualification bouts.
The PBU used the Tokyo 2020 boxing rules as a baseline to create its rules for Paris 2024. This was aimed at minimising the impact on athletes’ preparations and guaranteeing continuity between Olympic Games. These Tokyo 2020 rules were based on the post-Rio 2016 rules that were in place before the IOC’s suspension of the International Federation of Boxing in 2019 and withdrawal of its recognition in 2023.
We have seen misleading information in reports about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Both athletes have been competing in international boxing competitions in the women’s category for several years, including the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships and IBA-sanctioned tournaments.
Both these athletes were victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. At the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process.
According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken only by the IBA Secretary General and CEO. The IBA Board only later confirmed it and only then requested that a procedure to be followed in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also state that the IBA should “establish a clear procedure on gender testing”.
The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any due process – especially considering that these athletes had been participating in top-level competition for many years.
Such an approach is contrary to good governance.
Eligibility rules must not be changed during an ongoing competition, and any rule changes must follow fair procedures and be based on scientific evidence.
The IOC is committed to protecting the human rights of all athletes participating in the Olympic Games in accordance with the Olympic Charter, the IOC Code of Conduct and the IOC Strategic Framework on Human Rights. The IOC is saddened by the mistreatment of two athletes currently being treated.
The IOC withdrew IBA’s recognition in 2023 after a suspension in 2019. The withdrawal was confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). See the IOC’s statement following the decision.
Watch Terence Crawford walk away from press conference after ‘pointless’ questionThe IOC has made it clear that in order for boxing to be included in the sports programme of the LA28 Olympic Games it needs to build a consensus among the national boxing federations on a new international federation.
