The gender dispute engulfing boxing at the Paris Olympics will not be resolved anytime soon, as another boxer who failed eligibility tests is scheduled to fight on Friday.
Two-time world champion Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan will follow Imane Khelif and compete in her second Olympics when she takes on Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in the 57-kilogram category.
Algerian fighter Khelif has sparked a global debate after her opponent, Italian Angela Carini, quit 46 seconds into their fight on Thursday after being hit twice, saying she had never been hit so hard in her life.
Last year, both Khelif and Lin were found guilty of failing gender eligibility tests at the world championships. Khelif, 25, has XY male chromosomes but is not transgender. Both fighters are listed as female on their passports.
Lin is the top seed in the 57-kilogram women’s featherweight category, giving her a bye into the first round ahead of her showdown with Turdibekova.
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting is fighting in Paris on Friday but failed a gender eligibility test last year
This follows Imane Khelif’s controversial win over Italy’s Angela Carini on Thursday.
Last year, she won the Asian Games title, which allowed her to qualify for Paris. Lin won her first world title in 2018 and was the world junior champion in 2013.
Khelif and Lin are two-time Olympians and wrestled at the Tokyo Games.
The IOC has repeatedly defended the boxers’ right to compete this week. Olympic boxing has achieved gender parity For the first time this year, 124 men and 124 women competing in Paris.
“All those competing in the women’s category comply with the eligibility rules of the competition,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Tuesday. “They are women on their passports and it says so, that they are women.”
“These athletes have competed many times over many years. They have not arrived suddenly.”
The IOC said it made its eligibility decisions on the boxers based on gender-related rules that applied at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Several sports have updated their gender rules in the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling UnionThe athletics body also tightened rules on athletes with differences of sexual development last year.
The IOC is in charge of boxing in Paris because it revoked the IBA’s Olympic status following years of governance problems, lack of financial transparency and many perceived cases of corruption in judging and refereeing.
The IBA is controlled by Russian President Umar Kremlev, who hired Russian state-owned Gazprom as its main sponsor and moved much of the IBA’s operations to Russia.
It was the IBA who disqualified Ting and Khelif last year.