IBA holds chaotic news conference on Olympic boxing row

The International Boxing Association held a chaotic news conference yesterday which left more questions than answers over an eligibility row that has overshadowed boxing at the 2024 Olympics. Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting are guaranteed at least bronze medals in the women’s competition in Paris, having been cleared to compete in the […]

The International Boxing Association held a chaotic news conference yesterday which left more questions than answers over an eligibility row that has overshadowed boxing at the 2024 Olympics.

Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting are guaranteed at least bronze medals in the women’s competition in Paris, having been cleared to compete in the Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

That’s despite the pair being disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Championships after the IBA, which organised the event, claimed they had failed gender eligibility tests.

The Russian-led IBA, which was stripped of its status as amateur boxing’s governing body by the IOC in 2019 because of fears over its governance and regulation, called a news conference in Paris during which president Umar Kremlev and chief executive Chris Roberts were expected to shed new light on the disqualifications.

But after technical difficulties delayed the start of the news conference that ran for more than 100 minutes, Kremlev and Roberts gave contrasting and often contradictory accounts about the disqualifications.

Roberts claims Khelif and Lin were first tested at the 2022 World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey but no action was taken as the results were “inconclusive”.

He said the fighters’ disqualifications from the following year’s World Championships in New Delhi, India came after the results showed they were “ineligible”, in accordance with the IBA rules.