Gender testing has been mandatory in amateur boxing since the end of May. Olympic champion Khelif is now taking action against this.
Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif is challenging the introduction of gender testing by the new amateur world governing body World Boxing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). This was announced by the CAS on Monday. The Algerian is calling for the reversal of World Boxing’s decision that female boxers are no longer allowed to participate in tournaments without a genetic gender test.
Khelif, who, like Taiwan’s Lin Yuting, was at the center of a gender debate at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, also asked the CAS to allow her to participate in the Amateur World Championships in Liverpool from September 4 to 14 without undergoing such a test. On Monday, the CAS rejected a request to suspend the gender tests required by World Boxing until the case is heard.
At the end of May, the young world amateur boxing association, which has been recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since March, introduced gender tests to check the eligibility of male and female athletes for its competitions. In June, Khelif did not compete in a tournament in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Yuting, who like Khelif won the gold medal at the Olympics, will undergo the tests, her coach Tseng Tzuchiang told the AFP news agency.
According to World Boxing guidelines, all athletes over the age of 18 must undergo a PCR test. This is a laboratory procedure to detect specific genetic material, in this case the SRY gene. This indicates the presence of the Y chromosome, which serves as an indicator of biological sex.