With the Paris 2024 Olympics well underway, there has been a collective sigh of disappointment from both hardcore and casual fans of sport – with attention diverted to questions regarding gender eligibility rather on the tremendous talent of those competing.
Imane Khelif has faced the brunt of the abuse thus far, but today is was the turn of Lin Yu-Ting; who matched Khelif’s achievement and progressed to the quarter-finals after also being banned from the 2023 World Championships. Here is what we know of the Taiwanese featherweight.
Lin grew up in New Taipei City, Taiwan and has often faced slander for her preference of short hair, which is a bi-product of her love for the sport of boxing, quite simply avoiding longer hair as she ‘would spend too much time tending to it’ and is unwilling to sacrifice training time or rest time to look after it.
She took up boxing during junior high, earning a scholarship ticket and lessening the financial strain on her single-parent, training under Coach Tseng alongside male boxers despite her national ID number beginning with a ‘2’ – further prove that Lin is rightfully considered as a female.
As an amateur, Lin has won the 2013 AIBA Women’s Youth Championships and the 2022 IBA Women’s World Championships, and holds a win over current WBC featherweight champion Skye Nicholson, but Lin was stripped of her bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships.
So why the suspicion?
Both Lin and Khelif competed in the Tokyo 2020 games, as well as the 2022 World Championships which were both governed by the IBA, but both were disqualified from the 2023 World Championships, with the IBA being stripped of its status as a governing body for the Olympics by the IOC a few months later.
As per Sky Sports, the IBA stated that “both Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, post-testing, did not meet the required eligibility criteria to compete within the female category of our respective events”. However, the IOC explained that this decision was “taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO” and “without any proper procedure”.
Instead, the IBA declared that the tests, which were conducted by an unnamed independent laboratory and undergone by Lin and Khelif “conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors”.
Therefore, no testosterone examination has taken place and the IBA decision was based off of a confidential test, that is yet to be released to the public.
In summary, widespread speculation of both Khelif and Lin’s biological sex has been birthed by Umar Kremlev, president of the IBA – who were removed as a governing body from the Olympic games, with likely inconclusive and unreliable tests acting as his ‘proof’ – despite recognising both as females both in the past and in recent statements relating to the matter.
Lin Yu-Ting defeated Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova 5-0 in today’s preliminary round of the Paris 2024 Olympics, setting up a quarter-final with Bulgaria’s Svetlana Kamenova Staneva which goes ahead at 10:00 a.m. (local time) – where a win for Lin will guarantee her at least a bronze medal.
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