- Ebanie Bridges criticises decision to allow trans fighters to compete at Olympics
- Two trans boxers have been allowed to fight at the Paris Olympics
- Former IBF world champion says news is “honestly unbelievable”
Former world boxing champion Ebanie Bridges has slammed the decision to allow two trans fighters to compete in the women’s category at the Paris Olympics in an explosive social media post.
Two boxers who were banned from world championships for being considered biologically male have been allowed to compete at the Paris Olympics as women.
A controversy erupted in Paris after it emerged that Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting were banned from the championships last year amid questions about their biological sex.
But International Olympic Committee (IOC) chiefs said both fighters have done nothing wrong, have met all required eligibility criteria and will box in the coming days.
In recent days, images of Khelif dominating a previous opponent have gone viral and fight fans have reacted angrily.
Bridges, a former IBF bantamweight world champion from Australia, said he was “disgusted” that boxers had been allowed to compete.
‘Bro… these transsexuals competing in women’s boxing AT THE OLYMPICS… transsexuals born male, this is fucking disgusting,’ she posted on X.
“It’s fucking disgusting that the Olympic committee allows these boys/girls who still look like men to compete against women.
Ebanie Bridges (pictured) said it was “honestly unbelievable” that two trans boxers have been allowed to fight at the Paris Olympics.
Imane Khelif (pictured) from Algeria is one of two female boxers allowed to compete at the Olympics despite being banned from the world championships.
‘And these biological men who want to compete in women’s boxing must be sadists or something, because any man knows how much stronger they are than women and that’s also why a man hitting a woman is so bad… the biological difference IS REAL.
‘What the fuck! Honestly, it’s unbelievable and sick.’
Female boxing icon Claressa Shields, who was a gold medallist at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, also reacted angrily to the news.
Shields posted on X: ‘So you have men fighting women at the Olympics @Olympics box! I wouldn’t have tolerated anything like that! It’s so heartbreaking for women whose dreams have to be ruined by a man. So sad!’
Both Khelif and Yu-Ting were disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in March 2023 in New Delhi after a series of DNA tests were ordered amid concerns about the gender of some of the contestants.
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting (left) will join Khelif in competing at the Paris Olympics this summer.
At the time, International Boxing Association (IBA) president Umar Kremlev claimed that tests had shown that athletes including Khelif and Yu-Ting had “XY chromosomes”.
But the IBA has been stripped of the right to host Olympic boxing competitions amid concerns over governance and the IOC says all athletes involved are eligible to compete, with current rules seen as more relaxed than those of the IBA.
Following last year’s ban, the Algerian Olympic Committee hit back, claiming the disqualification was part of a “conspiracy” to prevent them from winning a gold medal and said there were “medical reasons” behind high testosterone levels.
According to the International Olympic Committee’s 2021 guidelines on gender identity and sex variations, the organization aims to ensure that “athletes are not excluded solely on the basis of their transgender identity or sex variations” while striving to create an environment where “no participant has an unfair and disproportionate advantage over others.”
“Everyone competing in the women’s category complies with the eligibility rules of the competition,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Tuesday in response to the scandal.
The IOC says the two fighters in question have met the required eligibility criteria.
‘Their passports show women and it is stated that they are women.
Officials say they are using rule books based on the version that was used at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
“They are eligible, under the federation rules that were put in place in 2016 and that also worked for Tokyo, to compete as women, which is what they are. And we fully support that,” Adams said.