On Saturday evening, just after Kellie Harrington defeated Beatriz Ferreira in the semi-final of the lightweight division, an email dropped from the International Boxing Association (IBA).
Nicely timed for the climax of the Olympic boxing event, the IBA invited journalists to a press conference the following day at Le Salon des Miroirs in Paris. The Room of Mirrors. No, it was not a joke.
The IBA wished to urgently give a “detailed explanation of the reasons for the disqualification of two boxers, Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting from Taiwan, from all IBA competitions”. In the middle of the Olympic Games?
An interesting coincidence here was Khelif was disqualified from the New Delhi World Championships in 2023 three days after she won an early-round bout against Azalia Amineva, a previously unbeaten Russian prospect.
Paralympians in the news
Sebastian Coe makes pitch for IOC presidency against tough field
Mourners pay respects at funeral of Ugandan Olympic athlete killed when set on fire by partner
Paralympic cyclist Katie-George Dunlevy: ‘I want to inspire visually impaired children and the LGBT community to not give up’
As the Paris press conference progressed, it descended into a chaotic and shambolic event. Sky: “Boxing press conference was a sideshow that turned into a shambles.” Time Magazine: “The IBA held a press conference about boxing’s gender controversy. It was a chaotic mess.” But first some background.
The IBA is led by a Russian, whose current name is Umar Kremlev. His original name was Umar Lutfuloev. He and the IBA have a deal in place with Gazprom, who have been generously supplying sponsorship and prize money to boxing. Gazprom is an enormous Russian majority state-owned energy company.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise the IBA because of major concerns stated in a letter last year regarding the IBA’s “practice and activities”.
The IOC asked for boxing to make reforms on governance, finance and ethical issues but nothing was forthcoming that satisfied the IOC requests. Now, not only is the IBA outside the IOC tent, but boxing has been left off the roster for the LA Games in four years’ time.
The organisation’s history is also opaque. In 2021, it was announced that the boxing federation had paid in full an outstanding $10 million debt to Azerbaijani company Benkons LLC. In the same announcement, we were informed of a $7 million round of development funding to national federations. The IOC wanted details but didn’t get them.
Before that the organisation elected Uzbek businessman Gafur Rakhimov as president. At the time he was on a US Treasury Department sanctions list for alleged links to international heroin trafficking, the same list to which Daniel Kinahan was added in 2022.
The dispute has been simmering for some time, with the IOC running the boxing events at Tokyo and Paris without input from the IBA.
So, the IBA held their press conference in the room of mirrors. Throughout the event technical glitches and noise disrupted Kremlev, who did not attend in person. He brought zero clarity and stoked fresh doubts over gender eligibility. He also referred to the opening ceremony and hitched himself to the offended Christians wagon.
A report on Sky also cited Chris Roberts, the IBA chief executive. Roberts was also opaque and couldn’t expand on the principal issue – the nature and results of the tests the IBA allegedly carried out that led to both boxers being banned.
“We don’t have a conspiracy theory,” said Roberts. “We’re not able to disclose the results of any tests but you can read between the lines of where that sits.”
Well, no you can’t. The IBA didn’t achieve clarity, they achieved what they wanted to and that was bedlam by successfully dragging the eligibility dispute into a wider war over gender identity.
“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure, especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years,” the IOC said in a statement. Correct. Harrington beat Khelif on her way to an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo three years ago. There was no issue at the time.
“Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process,” added the statement.
The issue is triggering for many people across all sports. There is a need to sort out equitably who can and cannot take part in women’s competitions.
But the IBA intervention was not about fairness or safety or about caring for some of their women boxers. It was a surge of aggression in an increasingly dirty turf war between them and the IOC.
The two athletes have been the collateral damage as the IBA despicably refuse to disclose evidence. Instead, the pair have been attacked by the organisation who are supposed to represent them and who are required to show them a duty of care. The press conference and the bans were political strokes by an association desperate to hold position and relevance within the Olympic family.
Additionally, they have campaigned to ensnare both Khelif and Yu-ting in a poisonous dispute, the result of which has been to place them at the centre of a culture war that all week has been characterised by ignorance, cruelty and a lack of humanity.
Tactically, the IBA’s apparent belief that a deliberate assault on two individuals protected by the Olympic Charter, and the disruption of boxing at the Olympics, can get them back to the table seems naive, and desperate. And the chances of having boxing as part of the roster for Los Angeles 2028 look doomed.
