Taiwanese boxer Lin agrees to gender test for world championships

Gold medalist Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting poses during a medals ceremony for the women's 57 kg final boxing match at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Taipei, Taiwan -- Taiwanese Olympic champion boxer Lin Yu-ting will undergo compulsory gender testing ahead of the world championships in Liverpool next month, her coach told AFP on Thursday.

Lin and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif were embroiled in a gender row at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where they both won gold medals in different weight classes.

World Boxing said on Wednesday that women wanting to compete at the World Boxing Championships in Liverpool would have to undergo “mandatory sex testing” under its new policy that took effect the same day.

“They announced that everyone must submit, so we will submit as well,” Lin’s coach Tseng Tzu-chiang said.

“If you want to compete you have to follow the rules of the competition. Since we are participating, we will go by their rules.”

Under the new policy, athletes over 18 who want to participate in a World Boxing-sanctioned competition need to take a PCR, or polymerase chain reaction genetic test, to determine their sex at birth.

Lin and Khelif both fought at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. There was no controversy at the time and neither won a medal.

The pair were excluded from the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed gender eligibility tests.

However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed them both to compete in Paris, saying they had been victims of “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”. Both went on to triumph.

Neither Khelif nor Lin are transgender women. Both were born and raised as women, which is how they are registered on their passports.

World Boxing will organise the boxing competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after being granted provisional recognition by the IOC.

AFP