The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Friday renewed its support for boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting who are competing in the Olympic tournament after being excluded from the World Championships for failing a gender test.
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was “born a woman, registered as a woman, lives her life as a woman, boxes as a woman,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Friday.
“This is not a transgender case,” he added during the IOC’s daily press conference, which issued a lengthy statement on the subject on Thursday evening.
In a profile on the boxer that he has since removed from his site MyInfothe IOC had explained that “high testosterone levels” had led to his disqualification from the 2023 World Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA).
The IBA, which has a terrible relationship with the IOC, denied that its test consisted of an analysis of testosterone levels but did not specify its nature.
Everyone wants “a simple explanation” but a “black or white” explanation does not exist, “neither in the scientific community nor elsewhere,” argued Mark Adams, spokesman for the IOC.
Asked whether the two athletes had been tested for testosterone before competing in the Olympics, Mark Adams replied: “No. […] “There are many women with higher levels of testosterone than men,” he added.
“These are women in their sport, and it is established in this case that they are women,” Mark Adams had already explained on Tuesday during a press briefing, refusing to cite the names of the athletes.
Both athletes competed at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, according to the IOC.