IOC president Thomas Bach defends Imane Khelif & Lin Yu-Ting from 'politically motivated cultural war', deems ‘hate speech’ towards them unacceptable

By Anirudh

Modified Aug 03, 2024 10:38 GMT

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has come out in strong support of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, two boxers at the 2024 Paris Olympics who have found themselves in the middle of a controversial debate surrounding gender.

Last year, the International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified Khelif and Yu-ting from the World Championships after reportedly failing gender verification tests. Several people on social media used this information to discredit both boxers, with many questioning their genders and even calling for them to be banned from the women's events at the Summer Games.

With Khelif and Yu-ting facing a lot of backlash online, Bach, in a press conference, said that these attacks on their identities were politically motivated.

"We will not take part in politically motivated, sometimes politically motivated cultural war. And allow me to say that what is going on in this context in the social media, with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse and fuelled by this agenda is a totally unacceptable," he said [at 1:25].

Till date, the IBA has not specified what type of test or the manner in which Khelif and Yu-Ting failed last year.

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"There was never any doubt" - Thomas Bach makes clear IOC's stance on Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting

IOC President Thomas Bach in Paris - Getty Images

The IOC has previously announced that both Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting were eligible to participate in the women's events at the 2024 Paris Olympics. It also stated that the IBA's decision to disqualify both boxers last year was arbitrary.

IOC president Thomas Bach has reiterated the organizing body's stance and said that they had no doubts about Khelif and Yu-Ting's genders.

"We are talking about women's boxing. And we have two boxers who were born as women, who have been raised as women. Who have passports as women. And who have competed for many years as women. And this is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman," he said.

"What we see now is that some want to own the definition of who is a woman. And there I can only invite them to come up with a scientific based new definition of who is a woman. And how can somebody being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman. If they are coming up with something, we are ready to listen. We are ready to look into it," he added.

Neither Khelif nor Yu-Ting has addressed the controversy publicly, so far.