Algeria accuses boxing body of ‘baseless claims’ in Olympic gender row

Imane Khelif of Algeria reacts after her fight against Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary on Aug. 3, 2024. Photo by Reuters

Imane Khelif, together with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, are in the eye of a storm after it emerged they were disqualified from the IBA’s 2023 world championships for failing gender eligibility tests, without specifying what the tests were.

The boxing in the French capital is run by the International Olympic Committee because of financial, governance and ethical concerns at the IBA.

The IOC cleared the two boxers to fight and both are in the semi-finals and therefore guaranteed a medal.

The two organizations have been in open dispute.

An IBA press conference in Paris was designed to clarify what tests Khelif and Lin underwent last year, and what the results showed.

IBA officials including Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, the organization’s president, who was on a remote video call, gave a series of contradictory statements to a room packed full of reporters.

The officials said they were also constrained by medical confidentiality.

What was clear was when Ioannis Filippatos, former chairman of the IBA’s medical committee, said “abnormalities” were detected in blood tests of both boxers in 2022.

The two boxers were tested again in 2023 to confirm the initial findings, IBA officials said, and after that they were disqualified.

“The medical result, blood result, looks — and the laboratory says — that this boxer is male,” said Filippatos.

“The problem is that we have two blood exams with karyotype of male. This is the answer from the laboratory.”

A karyotype is an individual’s complete set of chromosomes, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute in the United States.

It can also be a laboratory-produced image used to look for abnormalities in chromosome number or structure.

The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee quickly hit back, saying: “Algeria is not a member of the IBA.

“We do not recognize the IBA as a legitimate institution, and it has no connection with the Olympic Games.

“Our champion, Imane Khelif, remains untouched and undeterred by the baseless claims of the IBA.”

IOC president Thomas Bach and high-level officials from Algeria and Taiwan have strenuously defended Khelif and Lin, saying they were born and raised as women, and have passports saying that.

The Olympic body, which has effectively expelled the IBA from the Olympic movement, has accused the IBA of making “an arbitrary decision” over disqualifying the duo in 2023.

Khelif and Lin also fought at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but did not win a medal and competed without controversy.

The IOC told AFP following the IBA press conference: “The content and the organization of the IBA press conference tells you everything that you need to know about this organization and its credibility.”