2024-08-05 17:14:01
Olympic boxing, long criticized due to refereeing decisions, finds itself once again in turmoil at the Paris Olympics due to a latent conflict between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Boxing Federation (IBA). The women’s controversy involving fighters Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting has caused tensions that Russian Umar Kremlev, the president of the IBA, took pleasure in improving.
Published on: 05/08/2024 – 19:14Modified at: 05/08/2024 – 20:33
6 minutes
There is no Olympic competition in a sport like boxing. Outside the rings of Paris 2024, two sports bodies are engaged in great conflict: the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Boxing Federation (IBA), whose mission is to develop and direct sponsored boxing, “according to the requirements and spirit of the Olympic Charter.
The conflict worsened in 2019, when the IOC withdrew from the International Amateur Boxing Federation (AIBA) – which will become the IBA at the end of 2021 – its right to organize Olympic boxing. Troubled by many controversies, especially the suspicions of corruption of judges and lawyers during several subsequent Olympic Games, the IBA has changed its regime several times by reducing sulphurous presidents.
In 2020, Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev took over the leadership of the organization which is partially financed by the Russian gas giant Gazprom. Since then, relations with the IOC have only deteriorated, until nowwithdrawal, in June 2023, of the recognition given to IBA that now known from the Olympic world. Boxing is still on the agenda for the 2024 Olympic Games, with the IOC taking care of organizing the Olympic competition.
Umar Kremlev was angry with the “low authorities” of the IOC and their president Thomas Bach who, like him, only know how to spend money on themselves, without doing anything to promote boxing. He said he has a real project to revive professional boxing, which was to be presented last November in Paris. He said he wants to continue to clean this sport, especially by fighting corruption, and he hopes to create new tournaments, especially in France.
“Sex tests” controversy
Most Olympic sports are overseen by their international associations. However, in the case of boxing, no coordination is possible between the IBA and the IOC, which mainly has eligibility requirements for women’s competitions. During the World Championships in New Delhi last year, the IBA wanted to give gender determination tests to two female boxers, Algerian Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting. Although they had fought and won many battles, the two stopped. IBA does not specify the nature of these tests.
Read againOlympics 2024: where did the accusations against Imane Khelif, the boxer who was considered “too manly” come from?
The Olympic body, for its part, has repeatedly rejected the large number of these tests, describing them as “arbitrary”, and has spoken out against the use of these “sex tests” – genetic tests carried out using swabs or blood – which disappeared in 1999. Boxers Khelif and Lin, banned by the IBA, are therefore authorized to compete in Paris, with anyone identified as a woman in their passport authorized to fight against women.
Their participation raises for the IBA “important questions about the fairness of the competitions and the safety of the athletes”. Fears which are based specifically on the fight, in the round of 16, between Imane Khelif and the Italian Angela Carini, who left after 46 seconds of the fight after receiving direct violence directly to the face. The boxer to whom the IBA has chosen to pay an Olympic prize of 100,000 dollars for each gold medal winner in this sport. “I can’t see your tears,” Umar Kremlev said in a statement.
A storm and confusion IBA conference
Umar Kremlev has been less cold in recent days to the President of the IOC Thomas Bach, who has been strongly questioned several times on social networks. It is important to call him a “leader”, he is accused of having tried to block publications in which he has criticized the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games marked by “sodomy”.
If he did not comment on these sad media exits, Thomas Bach said however on Saturday August 3, about the two boxers. “What we see now is that some people want to conform to the definition of who a woman is,” the IOC president said. “And here I can only call them to propose a scientific basis, a new definition of who is a woman, and how a person who was born, grew up, competes and has a passport as a woman cannot be considered such” .
The argument has also gone far beyond simple sports theory. Many people have spoken on this issue, like Donald Trump, who said on the social network Truth that men should avoid women’s sports categories.
Questions about political recovery were systematically removed by the three representatives of the IBA who gave a press conference in Paris on August 5. All of them were convinced that they were pursuing a single goal: the protection of the stability of body of boxers. And they say they have submitted to the IOC medical data showing that these female boxers are male.
During this heated and confused conference, some journalists tried to see if the position of the IBA was not motivated by political reasons or renaissance conditions. Their questions remain unanswered. Umar Kremlev, who spoke to the media in Russia via video conference, also presented the results of the tests carried out by the IBA, confirming that female boxers have “very high testosterone levels”.
This debate continues to grow as the final stages of the Paris Olympics draw near. Lin Yu-ting is in the last four at – 57 kilos and Algerian Imane Khelif must compete, on August 6, in his semi-final at – 66 kg against Thai Janjaem Suwannapheng. The fight of the Algerian boxer, the victim of an extraordinary cyberhaassment campaign, is facing in very difficult situations. In an interview with the Associated Press agency, he called “everyone of the world” to “respect the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, and to avoid any kind of burden on the athletes”.
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