The president of the breakaway boxing organization supports the IOC's handling of gender issues at the Paris Olympics
VILLEPINTE, France: The head of the governing body hoping to stage the next Olympic boxing tournament said he supports the IOC's eligibility policy at the Paris Olympics, urging those without a deep understanding of gender issues to entrust those decisions to doctors and scientists. .
World Boxing president Boris Van Der Vorst also told The Associated Press on Thursday that his organization will always put athlete safety first when developing its own health and gender policies, while recognizing that martial arts sometimes require extra consideration to protect all athletes.
Van Der Vorst still strongly agrees with critics of the IOC's handling of the Olympic tournament, specifically the eligibility of women's boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.
“I think it's very important that when people are eligible to compete here, we have to respect them,” Van Der Vorst said. “I think it's a very sad situation for all the boxers, everyone involved here.”
The now-ousted International Boxing Association, which World Boxing hopes to replace, claimed both fighters failed gender eligibility tests at their 2023 world championships after both had competed in amateur boxing for many years.
Khelif won her first Paris match on Thursday when her opponent, Angela Carini of Italy, stopped after just 46 seconds. Although Carini said she was not making a political statement about Khelif, Carini's tearful abandonment of the match became a worldwide sensation on social media and in Western culture wars.
“What happened today, it shouldn't happen like this,” Van Der Vorst told the AP. “The hype that there is from social media, from the press, from everyone else, it's not very helpful, and it gets into everyone's head.”
Criticism of the two boxers is based in part on the policies and decisions of the IBA, which has been outside the Olympic movement since 2019 after years of IOC concerns about its leadership, integrity and financial transparency.
The IBA disqualified Khelif from its world championships because of what it said were elevated levels of testosterone, and it stripped Lin of a bronze medal because it claimed she failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.
Van Der Vorst's World Boxing is an alliance of several dozen nations that broke away from the IBA after an internal power struggle failed to oust its Russian president, Umar Kremlev. An IOC task force has run the last two Olympic boxing tournaments.
If World Boxing is approved to become the sport's Olympic governing body, it will be responsible for the major tournaments of the Olympic cycle. If World Boxing fails, boxing will likely be removed from the Olympic programme.
Van Der Vorst said it is “too early” to know World Boxing's exact policy on gender identity, given the unique physical demands and dangers of boxing.
“First and foremost, safety first,” Van Der Vorst said. “But I think with a martial art, there can be other reasons for how you're going to deal with these kinds of situations.”
The IOC used rules from 2016 to determine boxers' gender eligibility, while several Olympic sports' governing bodies have updated their gender rules in the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. The governing body for athletics also tightened the rules for athletes with differences in gender development last year.
“We will assign our medical committee as soon as possible after these games to formulate policy, and they are already underway,” Van Der Vorst said. “But they have to finalize their policy, and the general issue is very complicated. You have to have good tests, not just the gender tests, but also the medical tests. More importantly, I think it's not up to you and me. It's up to the (professional) people involved in (the testing).”
Van Der Vorst and other members of his organization are in Paris as observers – and sometimes recruiters of additional nations to join the only governing body with a chance to keep boxing on the Olympic program when the IOC decides the sport's fate in early 2025. World Boxing currently has 37 members.
World Boxing is also studying the mechanics of the major tournaments it hopes to stage, including the Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal, in 2026 and the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
Both Taiwan and Algeria are still IBA members, but Lin competed in a World Boxing invitational tournament in Pueblo, Colo., last spring. She lost her opening match against Brazilian Olympian Jucielen Romeu.
Van Der Vorst left the eventful day disappointed by the wild conclusions and speculation thrown across social media about both fighters.
“I haven't seen a single test that proves (the boxers are) transgender,” Van Der Vorst said. “That's why it's not very respectful of the boxers who compete here … to talk about them in those terms. That's what I'm trying to emphasize. When there's evidence, well, it's a different situation. But I have haven't seen anything to prove it.”
