Dr Ioannis Filippatos, former chairman of the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) medical committee, has weighed in on the gender controversy surrounding Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting at this year’s Paris Olympics.
Dr Filippatos spoke during a farcical press conference on Tuesday morning alongside IBA’s Russian chief Umar Kremlev and CEO Chris Roberts, where they attempted to clarify why his association threw out Khelif and Yu-ting from their World Championships last year.
The press conference descended into chaos amid technical errors, language barriers and raised tempers.
Kremlev said that two independent sex chromosome tests prompted the disqualification of the two women from the 2023 World Championships – a decision that has not been upheld by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The first test was in May 2022 and a laboratory in Istanbul found “inconsistencies.” A further test was carried out eight months later at the World Championships at which point the IBA declared the two fighters ineligible to fight in the women’s competition.
“The tests show they were men,” Kremlev said. “We don’t verify what they have between their legs. We don’t know if they were born like that, or if some changes were made.”
Dr Filippatos added that “the medical result, blood result, looks – and the laboratory says – that these boxers are male.”
IOC president Thomas Bach and high-level officials from Algeria and Taiwan have strenuously defended Khelif and Lin, saying they were born and raised as women, and have passports saying that.
The IOC has said that both Khelif and Lin, who were registered as women at birth and held passports as females, were eligible to compete in Paris.
Both Khelif and Lin have guaranteed themselves medals at the Olympics, with IOC eligibility rules in place for Paris 2024 after Games bosses stripped the IBA of the right to run the competition over corruption and governance issues.
Source: The Washington Post.
