World Boxing, the body hoping to be in charge of the sport at the next Summer Olympics, has vowed to make boxer safety “absolutely paramount,” telling DW it will announce a policy on transgender and difference of sexual development (DSD) competitors in the “coming weeks.”
On Wednesday, the organization, which was formed in April 2023, received provisional recognition as an international sports federation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most significant step so far in a process that would safeguard boxing’s place at the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
The IOC has run the boxing competition at the past two editions of the Olympics amid a governance dispute with the International Boxing Association (IBA), which, until World Boxing came along, was amateur boxing’s only global governing body. The IOC withdrew its recognition of the IBA in June 2023.
Controversy at Paris Games
However, the competition at last summer’s Paris Olympics was overshadowed by a controversy surrounding the eligibility of two female boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, whom the IBA said had failed unspecified gender tests at its world championships in 2022 and 2023.
Khelif and Lin won the gold medal in their respective categories, with critics calling their participation unfair and dangerous.
Asked what its gender policy would be given the controversy in Paris, a spokesperson for World Boxing told DW: “We put boxers first and the safety of athletes is absolutely paramount. We have recognized for some time that gender clarity is an extremely complex issue with significant welfare concerns.”
The IOC has repeatedly defended allowing Khelif and Lin to compete in Paris, dismissing the IBA’s tests as “illegitimate” and pointing to its own rules for the boxing competition, which stated that eligibility was determined by the sex listed on an athlete’s passport. The IOC said that both boxers were born and raised as female.
While there is currently no mention of the words “transgender” and “DSD” in World Boxing’s 50-page competition rules, the spokesperson said that the organization’s medical committee was in the process of developing a policy on “sex, age and weight.”
Delivering a ‘fair, competitive playing field’
A working group of the medical committee has “examined data and medical evidence from a wide range of sources and experts across the world to develop an updated policy that will be designed to deliver a fair, competitive level playing field for men and women that ensures the safety of all participants,” the spokesperson said.
“There will be an announcement on this in the coming weeks.”
Khelif and Lin are yet to appear at a World Boxing competition, with the Taiwanese fighter withdrawing from a World Boxing Cup event in England last year over concerns about her eligibility.
The IOC has repeatedly made clear that it isn’t prepared to organize the Olympic boxing competition for a third time, and, as such, the sport hasn’t yet been included on the program for the Los Angeles Games.
‘A step closer’
Welcoming World Boxing’s provisional recognition, Boris van der Vorst, the organization’s president, said in a statement: “Keeping its place at the Olympic Games is absolutely critical for the future of our sport… and this decision by the IOC takes us one step closer to our objective of seeing boxing restored to the Olympic program.”
World Boxing currently has 78 members across five continents, including Germany. Among the IOC’s criteria for recognition is the need for sufficient members globally and independent oversight of sports integrity.
Prior to its 2023 move to derecognize the IBA, the IOC had long been at loggerheads with the organization over allegations of bribery and fight fixing, particularly at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Edited by: Chuck Penfold
