's campaign against the IOC imploded at a chaotic and disorganised press conference in Paris.){kind=link}
The International Boxing Association (IBA) was riding high this past week after the gender issue blew up at the Paris Olympics. But the federation’s vindictive campaign against the International Olympic Committee (IOC) imploded at a chaotic and disorganised press conference on Monday.
IBA’s Russian president Umar Kremlev has turned to increasingly bizarre attacks against IOC President Thomas Bach. After the opening ceremony on July 26, Kremlev wrote on X that “the 2024 Olympic Games are outright sodomy and the destruction of traditional values throughout the world and Thomas Bach is responsible for this.”
The reason for this ill-feeling is obvious: the IOC had suspended IBA in 2019 from the Olympic family over long-running concerns over the boxing federation’s finances and governance. The boxing tournament at Paris 2024 is being run by the IOC itself, as was Tokyo’s, with IBA being left out in the cold.
But the gender crisis that erupted last week had given IBA a new lease of life. Two boxers that IBA had disqualified from the world championships last year for failing gender eligibility tests – Imane Khelif (Algeria) and Lin Yu‑ting (Taiwan) – were allowed by the IOC to fight in the women’s events at Paris. After notching up controversial wins, both boxers are now guaranteed medals. Khelif has reached the final in her weight category with huge wins over her opponents.
The IOC has failed to acknowledge that the current rules are inadequate and need to protect women boxers.
Following the furore over the disastrous bout last week between Khelif and Angela Carini (Italy) – which lasted just 46 seconds – the IOC has instead doubled down, claiming in a statement that both Khelif and Lin identify as females on their passports and should be treated as such despite their physical appearances.
Enter IBA, which had disqualified the two boxers in 2023 because testing reportedly revealed that they possessed X and Y chromosomes. IBA found it now had an opportunity to score points over IOC and rival federation World Boxing, and to present itself as the protector of women’s interests.
It decided to host a press conference in Paris, but this move backfired as the shambolic event stretched to over two hours and grew ill-tempered.
Kremlev appeared via a remote video link and began with an opening “statement” that was a rambling rant against the Olympic opening ceremony and alleging that Bach was corrupt. Kremlev argued that Khelif and Yu-Ting’s participation in the Olympics was unfair. “Today we are destroying sport, especially feminine sport,” he claimed.
Dr. Ioannis Filippatos, president of the European Union Boxing Committee and former chair of the IBA’s medical committee, told the 100 journalists present that the test results showed both boxers were male.
“The medical result, blood result, looks — and the laboratory says — that these boxers are male,” he said.
But apparently due to interventions by the national federations of Algeria and Taiwan a few hours prior to the press conference, IBA said it could not offer any details of the tests themselves.
And so, despite the build-up, IBA didn’t offer much new. What it did show was this is one sports body that could not organise even a press conference, let alone be trusted to organise a boxing tournament.