There is now intense scrutiny on Khelif’s first scheduled fight in Paris against Italy’s Angela Carini on Thursday. The International Olympic Committee claim that both the Algerian and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting can participate, on the grounds that they have fulfilled eligibility requirements and possess female passports.
This is contrary to the stance taken by the International Boxing Association, who disqualified Khelif from last year’s world championships in Delhi, while stripping Lin of a bronze medal because of a “biochemical test for gender eligibility”.
Khelif was thrown out of the event just hours before her gold-medal bout against Yang Liu of China, with the official Olympic notes on the 25-year-old stating that “her elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria”.
According to the Algerian Olympic Committee, she was disqualified for “medical reasons”. Khelif herself said at the time: “There are some countries that did not want Algeria to win a gold medal. This is a conspiracy, a big conspiracy, and we will not be silent about it.”
Umar Kremlin, president of the International Boxing Association, claimed the tests had shown that Khelif and Lin had “XY chromosomes”.
He alleged that his organisation had “uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women”. The IBA have since been stripped of the right to run Olympic boxing competitions amid concerns over their governance, with the IOC imposing more forgiving eligibility rules.
Barry McGuigan, the former world featherweight champion, has described it as “shocking” that Khelif and Lin “have actually been allowed to get this far”.
“What is going on?” the Northern Irishman asked.
So far, the IOC have been unable to provide satisfactory answers.
