PARIS — The president of the International Olympic Committee has reaffirmed that two boxers competing in the Olympics are women, and have lived and competed as such for their entire lives. Thomas Bach also criticized the boxing federation which suspended both women, and called online harassment of Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-ting “totally unacceptable.”
Khelif and Lin are at the center of a controversy that has enveloped these Olympics over the last few days, ever since Italian boxer Angela Carini abandoned her bout against Khelif just 46 seconds into their match. That performance, combined with the fact that both Khelif and Lin had been suspended last year by the International Boxing Association, which the IOC no longer recognizes, turned questions into accusations and fueled a full-fledged social media firestorm. Public figures such as author J.K. Rowling and former president Donald Trump incorrectly termed or implied Khelif is male, and protested her inclusion in Olympic women's boxing.
“Let’s be very clear here. We are talking about women’s boxing,” Bach said Saturday morning. “We have two boxers who were born as woman [sic], been raised as woman, who have passports as a woman, and who have competed for many years as woman. This is legally the definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.”
Bach noted the goalpost-moving that critics are engaging in, and invited other opinions with something more substantive than online attacks. “What we see now is that some want to own the definition of who is a woman,” he said, “and I can only invite them to come up with a scientific-based new definition of who is a woman. How can somebody, being born, raised, competed, having a passport as a woman, not be considered a woman?”
The rampant misinformation and outright lies on social media have inflamed the story, and Bach attempted to cool the temperature. “We will not take part in a politically motivated … cultural war,” he said. “What is going on in this context, in the social media, with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse, and fueled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable.”
Bach also quoted from Carini's apology, in which the Italian boxer said, per La Gazzetta dello Sport, "I want to apologize to [Khelif] and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke."
“I think this explains it all,” Bach added, “and this is what the Olympic spirit is about, the respect for your opponent, whether you win or whether you lose.”
At the center of this controversy sits the International Boxing Association, the organization which originally suspended Khelif and Lin under murky justification. Concerns about the IBA’s operations, financial structure and judging led the IOC to distance itself from the IBA and finally, last year, sever ties with the organization altogether. A temporary new unit now runs boxing at the Olympics, and Bach clearly relished an opportunity on Saturday to criticize the IBA and its principals, without using the organization’s name.
“What we have seen from the Russian side, and in particular from the international federation from which we had to withdraw the recognition, for many reasons, [is] that they have undertaken already, way before these Games, with a defamation campaign against France, against the Games, against the IOC, and they have made a number of comments in this respect which I do not want to repeat to give them not too much honor.” He scoffed at the “credibility of information coming from this not-any-more-recognized international federation.”
Khelif is scheduled to fight in the women’s 66kg quarterfinals on Saturday afternoon. Lin is scheduled to fight next on Sunday in the women’s 57 kg quarterfinals.
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