A fascinating and underdiscussed element of this summer’s controversies over Olympic boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting is the organization those accusations sprung from. The basis for claims that eventual women’s welterweight gold medalist Khelif, in particular, was “transgender” from the likes of J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk (which Khelif is suing over), and to false conflation of trans issues with the Khelif situation from the likes of Pat McAfee and his ESPN-hosted show, came from the International Boxing Association and current president Umar Kremlev’s claims those boxers had “failed gender tests” at past IBA events.
But that only begins to tell the story.
The IBA did not actually regulate boxing in the 2020 (which were contested in 2021) and 2024 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee suspended the IBA in 2019 over finance and government issues , and permanently cut ties with them in 2023 . But the IBA continued to run other international boxing events, including the 2023 IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships.
Those 2023 championships were the basis for the IBA’s claims during this summer’s Games that Khelif and Lin had “failed gender tests.” And those sparked so much media discourse (much of it factually inaccurate , which is part of that legal action ). But few really deeply looked into the bizarre recent history of the IBA under Kremlev and its close ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russian government. A Washington Post deep dive this week from Gus Garcia-Roberts and Les Carpenter is a fascinating read there:
That piece starts with the account of a Mali boxing delegate whose body hit the roof of a hotel elevator during a 2006 IBA election, with suspicion he had “solicited bribes from both sides — and one of them didn’t appreciate it.” It includes plenty of other discussions of electoral shenanigans, including in 2022 when a sudden power outage impacted a vote on if there should be a new election to replace Kremlev. There are also a lot of specific references to Kremlev (born Umar Luftulloev)’s ties to Putin and Russian state organizations.
But maybe the most interesting thing from a media perspective is what that piece has to say about the IBA and their ties to the 2021 acquisition of Inside the Games. That was a British website that used to be a key independent source of Olympics information. But, in recent years, it’s turned into a site posting praise for the IBA and criticism of the IOC. Here’s more from the Post piece :
Inside the Games was a British website dedicated to Olympic news. But in May 2021, records show, a Hungarian business called Vox Europe Investment Holding LLC acquired a majority stake in the company that owns it. Vox, which shares a name but no link to the American news platform, was itself owned by a Russian cab company called FT-Taksopark. Kremlev was FT-Taksopark’s top executive at the time, Russian records show, and before long Inside the Games’ directors included Russians with links to Kremlev, including business partner Maksim Kotkov.
The site’s coverage shifted noticeably. In April, for instance, it published a story calling Kremlev a “pioneer” and quoting boxer Jones lauding “the great work the IBA is doing.” In June, corporate records show, the parent company for Inside the Games was transferred again, to a Dubai company. The site’s current chief executive, Oleg Denisov, has reportedly said that there is currently “ no Russian ownership ” of the site. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The whole Post piece is well worth a read for the specifics here. But the key thrust of it is a thorough illumination of some of the extremely troubling dynamics that popped up this summer around Khelif and Lin. Many credulously reported on or relayed the IBA claims without question, citing their status as a sport federation, but not noting their close ties to Russia (which has plenty of IOC grievances) and how they had been banned from Olympic involvement years ago. And even when the initial information was presented accurately, everyone from headline writers to TV/radio hosts made leaps of logic to conclusions that were not in the stories.
On one level, it seems almost absurd to ponder international psychological and propaganda warfare in sports. These are theoretically just athletic games, after all. But the Olympics in particular has always had incredible international propaganda dimensions, from “ The Nazi Olympics ” in 1936 (and Jesse Owens ruining Adolf Hitler’s plans there ) through the 1956 “ Blood in the Water ” Hungary/USSR water polo match through the 1972 Munich killings of Israeli athletes through the 1976 boycotts over South Africa to the 1980s USSR and USA boycotts to more recent discussions about if and how Russian athletes can compete despite bans on their country over doping scandals . And Russia has been linked to stirring up debate on sports, even U.S.-only sports , in the past.
And the Post piece here is fascinating for pinpointing the specific Russian ties to much of the Khelif-Lin discussion, both through IBA officials and through ties to “media” outlets like Inside the Games. There’s room for discussing the whole situation on its actual, factual merits, but so much of what took place this summer was not that. And this new piece illustrates just how much of it came from people with close ties to Russia, with significant histories of fighting with the IOC, and with significant motivation to denigrate the Olympic boxing competitions. That helps illuminate just how and why we got such a controversy there this summer.
[ The Washington Post ]
The post Imane Khelif saga gains new dimensions from WaPo report on Umar Kremlev, IBA, and Inside The Games appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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