Imane Khelif SKIPS tournament just days after World Boxing announced that all fighters must undergo sex testing
Proper news from Britain - News from Britain you won’t find anywhere else. Not the tosh the big media force-feed you every day!
- Imane Khelif has missed the registration deadline for a Dutch competition
- It comes just says after World Boxing announced an upcoming rule change
- World Boxing will require all athletes over the age of 18 to have sex tests
Imane Khelif will miss the Eindhoven Box Cup - just days after World Boxing introduced mandatory sex testing.
The Algerian, who was at the heart of a gender row at the Paris Olympics alongside Thailand's Lin Yu-ting, has missed the registration deadline for Thursday.
Olympic chiefs were satisfied to let athletes compete based on the sex stated on their passport but World Boxing will introduce more exacting measures from July 1.
Their new policy requires all athletes over the age of 18 to undergo a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility to compete.
Eindhoven Box Cup media director Dirk Renders said: 'The decision of Imane’s exclusion is not ours. We regret it.' Khelif had intended to compete.
Mayor of Eindhoven Joren Dijsselbloem opposes World Boxing's ruling and recently wrote in a letter to them and the International Boxing Federation: 'As far as we are concerned, all athletes are welcome in Eindhoven.
'Excluding athletes based on controversial ‘gender tests’ certainly does not fit in with that.
'We are expressing our disapproval of this decision today and are calling on the organization to admit Imane Khelif after all.'
Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships by the International Boxing Association - the previous world governing body - for allegedly failing elgibility tests.
An report on the medical test allegedly seen by 3 Wire Sports said that 'chromsome analysis reveals male karotype' - an XY chromosome pair.
Khelif was deemed eligible to compete in France despite World Boxing having known about the 2023 more than a year's previous knowledge about the test, with IOC president Thomas Bach previously questioning the test's legitimacy.
The cases of Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting caused much debate before, during, and after their run to Olympic gold medals.
'This is not a transgender case, this is about a woman taking part in a women's competition,' IOC president Thomas Bach said in a corrected statement at the time.
Khelif's father produced an alleged birth certificate during the Olympics which recorded the boxer as female.
Lin and Khelif also competed at the Tokyo Games without such a level of media attention.
However, the IBA, the controversial organisation who disqualified Khelif and Lin, said they 'did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognised test, whereby the specifics remain confidential.
'This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.'
World Boxing is provisionally recognised as the sport's international governing federation for the next Olympics by the IOC.
