‘Unacceptable and outrageous’: Hungary protests presence of women’s boxer who failed gender test

The Hungarian Boxing Association has described a looming quarter-final bout involving an Algerian opponent who previously failed a gender test as “unacceptable and outrageous”, as the Olympic boxing tournament was consumed by an increasingly bitter gender stoush.

The gender controversy escalated as a second women’s boxer who failed to satisfy her sport’s eligibility test stepped into the Paris ring tonight (AEST).

Hungary’s state news agency, MTI, reported that the country’s boxing association was sending letters of protest to the IOC over Anna Luca Hamori’s quarter-final match-up with Imane Khelif of Algeria in women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics.

Hamori still planned to accept her fight against Khelif, but the Hungarian Boxing Association (HBA) was considering legally challenging Khelif’s presence.

“I am very sad that there is a scandal and that we have to talk about a topic that is not compatible with sport,” said HBA executive board member Lajos Berko. “This is unacceptable and outrageous.”

The association planned to “express our indignation and request that the IOC reconsider its decision, which allowed a competitor into the IOC competition system who was previously banned from the world championships”, he added.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni raised the gender row with International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach after Italian boxer Angela Carini abandoned her bout mid-fight on Thursday after sustaining a series of crushing blows from Khelif.

Meloni said on Thursday that Carini’s bout against Khelif was not a fight among equals.

“During the face-to-face meeting [with Bach], the case of athlete Imane Khelif and the issue of rules to ensure fairness in sports competitions were also addressed,” Meloni’s office said, adding that the Italian government and the IOC would remain in contact over how to deal with the matter in the future.

Italy will host the 2026 Winter Games.

Before Asian Games champion Lin Yu-ting stepped into the ring at 11.30pm AEST, the IOC took a few swift jabs at the IBA, the former world governing body benched last year for failing to address governance problems and corruption within its sport.

In a fiercely worded joint statement released in Paris on Friday, the IOC and Paris 2024 accused the IBA’s former secretary general and chief executive officer, George Yerolimpos, of making a “sudden and arbitrary” decision to disqualify Lin and Algerian fighter Imane Khelif from the last world championships.

“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 statement read.

“These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process.

“Eligibility rules should not be changed during ongoing competition, and any rule change must follow appropriate processes and should be based on scientific evidence.”

The statement further muddies the waters of a global imbroglio that engulfed North Paris Arena Paris when Carini pulled out of her fight against Khelif in the 66kg class after just 46 seconds.

Carini turned to her corner immediately after the fight ended and cried out repeatedly, “It’s not fair!” She later said she had never been hit so hard as the blows she received from Khelif during their short-lived fight.

The one-sided bout between Carini and Khelif went viral on social media, elevating the previously little-known Italian boxer to iconic status among feminists concerned that a push for greater inclusion of gender diversity has encroached on the rights of women in sport.

The IOC, following its decision to strip its recognition of the IBA as the governing body for boxing, assumed governance responsibility for boxing at these Games. The joint IOC and Paris 2024 statement said they recognised whatever gender an athlete declares on their passport.

Khelif has identified as a woman since birth.

Although the IBA hasn’t fully explained why Khelif and Lin were disqualified from both the 2022 and 2023 world championships, the IBA competition rules make it clear that athletes with XY chromosomes cannot fight in women’s events. Once disqualified on this basis, an athlete is unable to enter future women’s events.

The Washington Post reported that IBA president Umar Kremlev, in 2023 comments to the Tass Russian news agency, said the two fighters were disqualified from that year’s world championships because “it was proven they have XY chromosomes”.

Minutes of a 2023 IBA board meeting held shortly after the world championships in Delhi note that the unspecified test was conducted by an independent laboratory and that the same procedure at the previous year’s world championships returned the same result.

With Reuters

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