The problem is not just that Adams lacks any expertise about boxing, but that a male IOC executive with no skin in the game is presuming to tell women what they should and should not accept. And it is evident, from the mood in Paris and beyond, that many women refuse to put up with this arrogance any longer. Caitlin Parker, captain of the Australian boxing team here, said of the inclusion of two previously disqualified boxers: “It can be incredibly dangerous. I don’t agree with it. It’s not like I haven’t sparred men before, but for combat sports it should be seriously looked into. Biologically, genetically, I really hope the organisations get their act together.”
Some hope. The IOC is so blinded by gender ideology that it appears to care far more about curating a progressive image than about ensuring female boxers are not gravely hurt. Look, for example, at how it operates on the transgender issue. At the height of the furore over Laurel Hubbard, a biological male competing in Olympic women’s weightlifting in Tokyo, Dr Richard Budgett, their medical director, blithely declared: “Everybody accepts that trans women are women.” Really, Richard? Why then, in the three years since, have several major Olympic sports – from athletics to cycling to swimming – reserved the women’s category exclusively for those born female?
You would have thought by now that the IOC could see which way the wind is blowing. But it is still devoted to a gospel where inclusion trumps fairness and even, in the case of boxing, safety. This is what Madeleine Pape, its “gender equality, diversity and inclusion specialist”, said last month at their Lausanne headquarters about the transgender row: “The IOC recognise that trans women are women. We need to get away from an abstract debate that calls into question the existence of a women’s category altogether. Put that aside and really focus on the human beings at the centre of it.”
Those in power more worried about inclusion than doing what is right for women
What about focusing on the women ignored by these fatuous statements? Not to put too fine a point on it, what about the IOC doing its job? The controversy involving the two boxers is distinct from the Hubbard furore, in that nobody is suggesting that they have transitioned. But the fact that they have failed testosterone tests creates a worry that they are carrying an immutable advantage into the most lethal sport of all. This is a concern that the IOC is ethically compelled to address. Instead it washes its hands, punting it straight back to the federations.
“Ask the individual sports,” it says. “Ask the IOC,” those sports reply. And round and round in circles we go. It is a moral and intellectual vacuum that has brought us to this point, where those in power are more preoccupied with the rhetoric of inclusion than with doing what is right for women.
A striking statement was issued by the International Boxing Association on Wednesday night, directly accusing the IOC of “permitting athletes with competitive advantages to compete in their events”. Now we have arrived at the logical end game, with a woman entering a boxing ring unsure of the sex of the person she is facing. As failures of sporting governance go, this might be the most reprehensible yet.
