Amid all the joy and jubilation of the Paris Olympic Games, amid all the beauty and splendour, a tragedy is unfolding before our eyes. On Sunday morning, at the Parc des Expositions, not far from Charles de Gaulle airport, the second act of the tragedy was played out.
A boxing ring stood in the middle of an austere hall at an exhibition centre and as the preamble began, a man wearing a bowler hat and an oversized fake moustache led the collective singing of Champs-Élysées, a song for the carefree.
After that, they cranked up the playlist and performed their clever trick of making it look like the athletes at the 1924 Paris Olympics, portrayed on the big screen in sepia or black and white, were singing modern hits. Highway to Hell is a favorite.
After playing “I Will Survive,” Lin Yu-ting, a 28-year-old featherweight from Taiwan, was escorted into the arena by three coaches and excitedly climbed the ropes. For some, that square of canvas is a place to struggle. For Lin, it has become a place to escape.
It’s hard to know where to begin with the furor that has enveloped Lin and Algerian welterweight Imane Khelif at these Olympics, except to say that the sanctity of women’s sport needs to be protected as a priority.
It is wrong to allow boxers who compete in gender matches (pictured, Lin Yu-ting) to compete in the Olympics
Lin and Imane Khelif (pictured) are being used as pawns in the political war between the International Olympic Committee and the International Boxing Association.
The fact that the two boxers were allowed to compete at all suggests utter incompetence and alarming luddism on the part of the IOC and its president, Thomas Bach, pictured here.
The tests, sanctioned by the International Boxing Association and conducted at the Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul in 2022 and New Delhi last year, showed Lin and Khelif had XY chromosomes and did not meet eligibility standards for female competition.
It seems dangerously wrong for them to compete here in a sport where unfair advantages in physical strength could lead to serious injury or death. It is not their fault, but it does suggest utter incompetence and alarming luddism on the part of the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach.
There is one caveat here: the tests appear to have been conducted by a reputable lab in New Delhi, but this case is riddled with charlatans, liars, braggarts, ignorance, prejudice, fear and rage, so it takes wings to stay above it all.
Do you trust these people? One need only take a quick look at the ensuing chaos and the insults that were heard at the hasty IBA press conference in Paris on Monday afternoon to see that no one is innocent in this case. Except, perhaps, Lin and Khelif.
“The tests show that they were men,” said the Russian president of the IBA, Umar Kremlev. “We did not check what they have between their legs. We do not know if they were born like that or if they underwent some change.” This is how the IBA describes human beings.
Lin and Khelif have become an industry of their own, a touchstone for both legitimate concerns and unfounded fears. They are aces up the sleeve, collateral damage in a political war between the IOC and the IBA and the monstrous egos who delight in using them as their pawns.
This is the world that Lin, 28, entered at Paris’s Arena du Nord on Sunday morning. Lin is fighting for the second time at the Olympics in the women’s 57kg category. She is a boxer who grew up as a girl and grew up as a woman and took up boxing to try to protect her mother from domestic violence.
Once inside the ring, Lin ran to the center and bowed theatrically to the four corners of the arena and then once again to the referee, who looked like a rather gloomy version of Minnesota Fats.
IBA President Umar Kremlev, pictured on screen, oversees an organisation that has been stripped of recognition and left unable to oversee boxing at the Olympics.
The IBA held a hastily arranged press conference that ended in chaos and insults.
Svetlana Staneva (right) gave it her best shot but ended up losing to Lin on Sunday.
Lin was wearing red. Her opponent, Svetlana Staneva, was wearing blue, and both knew that whoever won their quarterfinal would be assured of a medal. The raucous Taiwanese contingent in the crowd cheered Lin and continued to support her throughout the three-round bout.
It was not a fight for purists. Lin threw plenty of hard punches, but she didn’t land many of them. However, it was clear that Lin was the better fighter from the start and a strong jab sent Staneva reeling in the first round.
The Bulgarian boxer repeatedly complained about Lin’s fighting tactics and use of elbows, and the referee warned her several times. Staneva defended herself to the maximum. In the third round, she pushed Lin to the ground. It was more like a judo throw than a punch.
Lin was knocked down in the final round, but it was more of a tackle than a punch and didn’t count. Every time Lin landed a punch, which happened more and more often, the three trainers standing by her corner would clap loudly and pump their fists in the air.
When the fight was over, the music started again. “Baby, I’m going to have the best night of my life,” the words went, “and wherever it takes me, I’ll be ready for the ride.” Lin tried to touch gloves with Staneva, who was reluctant to reciprocate.
Before the result was officially announced, Staneva stood in the ring and made an X sign twice with her fingers to suggest, presumably, that she was all woman. And Lin was not. The judges gave the fight to Lin by unanimous decision.
Lin stopped by the mixed zone after the fight to speak to Taiwanese reporters, who were careful not to ask tough questions. One of them asked him why he had not spoken to Lin about the ongoing controversy.
Staneva made an X sign in the ring, presumably to suggest that she was all woman and Lin was not.
Lin will fight for a place in the final on Wednesday night as the contest continues in Paris.
The controversy over the two athletes continues to overshadow the Olympic boxing event
“We want her to win gold,” he said, “so we don’t want to put her under any more pressure than she already faces.”
As Lin walked by, Staneva’s coach was talking to Bulgarian journalists and holding a white piece of paper on which he had written the words: “I only want to play with women; I am XX,” it said.
The coach said he had written the note. “This is perhaps the message of every female boxer in this tournament,” he said.
On Wednesday night, Lin will fight for a place in the final. On Tuesday night, Khelif will fight for a place in the women’s 66kg final. On Monday, the IBA held its press conference in a room called the Hall of Mirrors.
The Paris Olympic venues are impressive
One of the joys of being at the Paris Olympics has been the stunning beauty of some of the scenery. I watched the dressage team final at Versailles on Saturday and the scenery, with the castle in the distance, was breathtaking.
Here’s a top five of the most beautiful sporting venues I’ve been to. 1. Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town 2. Sailing events on Sydney Harbour at the 2000 Olympics 3. Rowing at Lagoa at the 2016 Rio Olympics 4. Mixed triathlon finish line on Pont Alexandre III at the 2024 Paris Olympics 5. Enzo e Dino Ferrari racetrack in Imola.
Some of the venues for the Paris Olympic Games, such as the Palace of Versailles, are impressive.
Getting rid of Gallagher is crazy
Another sign of the dysfunction that has gripped Chelsea since Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali took over is that one of their most important players has been sent off.
Amid the chaos of last season, Conor Gallagher was one of the few Stamford Bridge players to emerge with some recognition. He was a team player, selfless and hard-working, the glue that held the team together and was instrumental in driving their late-season recovery.
So what do Chelsea do? They keep Enzo Fernandez, who has just led his Argentina team-mates in racist chants and has been desperately disappointing since his £105m arrival from Benfica, and sell Gallagher to Atletico Madrid. How reassuring it is to see that Eghbali and Boehly have not lost their touch.
Chelsea’s decision to let Conor Gallagher go to Atletico Madrid is crazy