Why boxing is on brink of being THROWN OUT of Olympics amid worldwide outrage at gender row controversy
Team GB were on the wrong end of several suspect decisions
BOXING faces being axed from the Olympics as Games chiefs call on the sport to get its house in order.
A gender row has overshadowed Paris 2024 after Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting’s participation in the women’s category was questioned.
Khalif’s opponent Angela Carini quit after just 46 seconds and it emerged in the aftermath that the Algerian and Yu-Ting had been thrown out of last year’s IBA world championships over failed gender eligibility tests.
Women’s rights campaigners have slammed organisers but the IOC insists every athlete at the Games is eligible to compete.
Boxing is desperately close to being booted out of Los Angeles 2028 because of its deeply concerning governance.
That means there is little hope or reason for prospects to commit to the amateur code and the long and punishing Olympic cycle.
An International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesperson “As it stands, boxing is currently not on the sports programme of the Olympic Games LA 28.
“The IOC has made it very clear that it cannot again organise such Olympic boxing competitions.
“In order to remedy this, Olympic boxing needs to be organised by a credible, well-governed international federation. Discussions are ongoing in this respect.”
When professor Richard McLaren investigated 77 Rio 2016 bouts overseen by Aiba – amateur boxing’s former international governing body – he reported “significant” and “rampant” manipulation of results.
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But the subjective nature of scoring bouts made proving outright corruption or changing results impossible.
The IOC suspended Aiba in 2019 and completely stripped them of their recognition in 2023 – even after they had tried to rebrand themselves as IBA.
But what hasn’t changed, perhaps most worryingly, is the man at the head of the shady organisation.
Umar Kremlev, a Russian pal of Vladimir Putin, was elected president in 2022 and promised a revolution.
But tying up a sponsorship deal with Gazprom and throwing money around the unpaid ranks has raised alarm bells.
IBA also tried 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 has watched the blatant robbery Joe Joyce suffered in 2016 or the suspiciously harsh decisions dished out to Delicious Orie, Rosie Eccles, Charley Davison last week would be forgiven for running a million miles away from their own Olympic dream.
Because even if Orie had got the nod over Armenia’s Davit Chaloyan, he looked nailed on to lose to Bakhodir Jalolov because the dismal running of the sport means the Uzbek 30-year-old is a now a 14-0 pro who is still allowed to compete and clean up at amateur events.
The wonderful modern glories stars like Audley Harrison, Amir Khan, James DeGale, Nicola Adams and Anthony Joshua gave us – and earned them deserved springboards into the paid ranks with – are in danger of becoming a distant memory.
Olympics gender controversy
THE International Olympic Committee (IOC) stirred up a huge controversy by clearing two women to box who had previously failed a gender test.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were disqualified at the Women’s World Championships in New Delhi, India, in March 2023.
Lin Yu-ting was stripped of a bronze medal after failing a gender eligibility test.
Khelif was disqualified in New Delhi for failing a testosterone level test.
Officials found tests showed they had ‘XY chromosomes’ — which indicates a person is biologically male.
Rare ‘intersex’ medical conditions, medically known as differences in sexual development (DSDs), can also mean outwardly female individuals can have ‘male’ chromosomes, or vice versa.
The Russia-led International Boxing Association organised that event but is no longer recognised by the IOC.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams said: “These athletes have competed many times before for many years, they haven’t just suddenly arrived – they competed in Tokyo.
“The federation needs to make the rules to make sure that there is fairness but at the same time there is the ability for everyone to take part that wants to. That is a difficult balance.
“In the end the experts for each sport are the people who work in that. If there is a big advantage that clearly is not acceptable, but that needs to be a decision made at that level.”
Both Khelif and Lin competed at the delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. Lin is a two-time winner at the Asian Women Amateur Boxing Championships.
The IOC said all boxers in Paris “comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations”.
The controversy follows the famous case of Caster Semenya.
South African middle-distance runner Semenya has a condition which means her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than normal for women.
She won gold in the 800m at London 2012 and Rio in 2016 but was unable to compete at Tokyo in 2021 after World Athletics brought in new rules independently of the IOC at the time.
It is no surprise 19-year-old heavyweight sensation Moses Itauma didn’t hang around and is already a 10-0 pro and stealing the show on TNT.
Or freakishly gifted Adam Azim, now 22, ditched the vest and headguard in 2020 to make an honest living out of the sport on Sky.
Professional boxing is still a brutal business – a big ticket seller or a female boxer who’s weigh-in lingerie is flashier than her fighting will sadly still often get more attention than a bigger talent with a lower profile.
But there are fights up and down the country every weekend, on a long list of different TV channels and streaming apps and boxers can use their personalities and punches to promote themselves across all the media at their skilled fingertips.
The amateur code – and the Olympics specifically – is supposed to be the absolute pinnacle.
Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk and two-time golden boy Vasyl Lomachenko will all tell you that those golden medals mean more to them than every belt and pound note they have banked since.
But if the IOC are so sick of the way the sport is being run then what chance does Team GB performance director Rob McCracken – or any unknown amateur coach from Land’s End to John O’Groats – have of convincing a young prospect of dreaming of LA 2028 or Brisbane 2032?
Piers Morgan has his say
This is a more complicated case than the barrage of shameful transgender scandals which have engulfed women’s sport in recent years.
Khelif reportedly has a condition called Swyer Syndrome which means she has some female reproductive organs but also much higher levels of testosterone than women.
As a result, she has a superior physicality to females, which can be seen by her tall, powerful frame.
In other words, she has an unfair advantage.
And that’s why there’s been such a furious response, led by JK Rowling, Elon Musk, and Martina Navratilova, to the footage of Carini quitting after being smashed in the face.
The obvious, indisputable, medical, and scientific, truth is that someone born with male biology of any kind has an obvious physical advantage over biological females.
That’s why we keep the sexes apart in the Olympics.
Otherwise, women would barely win a single medal.
To pretend otherwise is to be either utterly deluded or wilfully dishonest.
Hopefully, something drastic changes soon.
Since IBA was kicked out by the IOC a rival federation World Boxing has been established which is supported by 37 countries – including Great Britain and the USA – and counting.
It is committed to proper governance and transparent financial management.
But while it seems to have some support from the IOC, it is yet to be formally recognised.
So, far more worrying than a disappointing medal haul – compared to our previous magnificent achievements – is that Olympic amateur boxing faces an uncertain future and our young lions might decide they are better off out of it.
IOC and Paris 2024 Boxing Unit statement in full
A look at the full statement issued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit...
Every person has the right to practise sport without discrimination.
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 set by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU). As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport.
These rules also applied during the qualification period, including the boxing tournaments of the 2023 European Games, Asian Games, Pan American Games and Pacific Games, the ad hoc 2023 African qualifying tournament in Dakar (SEN) and 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 featured over 2,000 qualification bouts.
The PBU used the Tokyo 2020 boxing rules as a baseline to develop its regulations for Paris 2024. This was to minimise the impact on athletes’ preparations and guarantee consistency between Olympic Games. These Tokyo 2020 rules were based on the post-Rio 2016 rules, which were in place before the suspension of the boxing International Federation by the IOC in 2019 and the subsequent withdrawal of its recognition in 2023.
We have seen in reports misleading information about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. The two athletes have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category, including the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships and IBA-sanctioned tournaments.
These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards 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 solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO. The IBA Board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also say 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 proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.
Such an approach is contrary to good governance.
Eligibility rules should not be changed during ongoing competition, and any rule change must follow appropriate processes and should be based on scientific evidence.
The IOC is committed to protecting the human rights of all athletes participating in the Olympic Games as per the Olympic Charter, the IOC Code of Ethics and the IOC Strategic Framework on Human Rights. The IOC is saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving.
The IBA’s recognition was withdrawn by the IOC in 2023 following its suspension in 2019. The withdrawal of recognition was confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). See the IOC’s statement following the ruling.
The IOC has made it clear that it needs National Boxing Federations to reach a consensus around a new International Federation in order for boxing to be included on the sports programme of the Olympic Games LA28.