PARIS:Despite being one of the most popular global sports, amateur boxing continues to get bad publicity largely due to governance and transparency issues.
Algerian Imane Khelif, who is making the headlines for being a ‘biological male’ featured in a women’s competition, has added an unwanted page to the controversies, largely political, that grip the game. Inclusion of boxing in the 2028LA Games programme could be in serious jeopardy.
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Unlike hockey, shooting, football or badminton et al, boxing is not being conducted by the sport’s governing body here at the Paris Olympics. In June 2023, the International Olympic Committee derecognised the International Boxing Association (IBA) as the global body apparently for shoddy governance, financial and ethical issues. The IBA lost an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sports after that.
As was the case at Tokyo Olympics, the boxing competition at Paris 2024 is being run by the IOC’s Paris Boxing Unit (PBU) and not IBA. The gender controversy around Imane Khelif has deep roots in the IOC vs IBA impasse. And both parties are now busy defending themselves.
On Thursday, Italian boxer Angela Carini broke down in tears after taking painful blows from the Algerian. She abandoned the fight in the 66kg category after just 46 seconds in the first round.
“After the second punch, after years of experience, I felt a strong pain in the nose. I said enough, because I didn’t want (to). I couldn’t finish the fight after the punch to the nose. So it was better to put an end to it…regardless of the person I had in front of me, which didn’t interest me, regardless of all the row, I just wanted to win. I wanted to face the person that I had in front of me and to fight,” said Carini, triggering worldwide outrage.
Gender issues are not uncommon at the Olympics. Athletes often end up fighting long legal battles. Castor Semenya, South Africa’s two-time Olympic champion, continues to fight at the European Court of Human Rights against regulations requiring female athletes with high testosterone to take medication.
Indian sport too has been afflicted by cases where a ‘female’ athlete was found to be a ‘biological’ male for possessing more than acceptable levels of testosterone.
Sprinter and two-time Olympian Dutee Chand is a classic example. The Odisha athlete was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2021. Her cancer was diagnosed when Dutee was asked to quit sports after failing to qualify for Tokyo Olympics.
She was banned for four years. Another Asian Games medallist Santi Soundarajan was stripped of her medal after failing a gender verification test.
Even as the ‘man or woman’ question rages, IOC and IBA are busy defending themselves on the Imane Khelif issue and even trading blows, quoting the rule book. The IOC maintains Imane and Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-ting are legitimate ‘woman’ boxers and the IBA’s ban on them was
“Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process,” a statement from the IOC said.
“According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO,” the statement said.
The IOC also accused the IBA of changing its gender rules in the middle of the 2023 world championships.
“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure — especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.” Imane represented Algeria at Tokyo 2020 and lost in the quarter-finals.
The IBA has stood by its decision to ban Imane and Lin. Saying safety of boxers was top priority, “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. The disqualification was based on two trustworthy tests conducted on both athletes in two independent laboratories (in Istanbul in 2022 and New Delhi in 2023).”
The IBA vs IOC ‘war’ has also had another direct impact on India’s top medal hope in boxing, Nikhat Zareen. Despite being an IBA world champion in her weight category, Nikhat did not get a seeding in the Paris Olympics draw. She ran into China’s Wu Yu, who was the top seed, in Round 2 and lost. The IOC doesn’t recognise world meets conducted by IBA.
Coming back to the transgender issue, the IOC will continue to let Imane Khelif fight in her weight category. The Algerian Olympic Committee (COA) said on Wednesday it “strongly condemns the unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete, Imane Khelif, with baseless propaganda “from certain foreign media outlets”, adding: “Such attacks on her personality and dignity are deeply unfair, especially as she prepares for the pinnacle of her career at the Olympics. The COA has taken all necessary measures to protect our champion.”
Luca Anna Hamori, a Hungarian boxer who is due to face Khelif in the next round, has been quoted by the Guardian as saying that she was prepared. “I will go to the ring and I will get my win. I trust my coaches and I trust myself.”
There is a massive Algerian population in France and they have their bitter political differences with the French government. Earlier this week, Algeria withdrew its ambassador following President Emmanuel Macron’s letter to King Mohammed VI, in which Morocco were given special privileges to settle old issues around Western Sahara’s sovereignty. And now another Algerian is creating a media storm!
