Olympics under pressure to strip Khelif of boxing gold medal after leaked lab report

Calls for the International Olympic Committee to rescind Imane Khelif’s women’s boxing title have reignited after a leaked lab record reportedly found that she has male chromosomes.

The Algerian boxer won the light-welterweight gold medal at the 2024 Paris Games, even though a 2023 lab report on the athlete concluded that “Chromosome analysis reveals male karyotype,” as shown on the document published last weekend by 3 Wire Sports.

The report fueled international outrage over the IOC’s decision to allow two sex-disputed boxers – Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting – in the women’s arena based on sex listed on their passports, despite indications that both were ineligible.

“Imane Khelif’s gold medal should absolutely be revoked,” the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, or ICONS, said in a Thursday statement. “Female athletes were deceived, the IOC and the Algerian Boxing Federation both knew that Khelif was male.”

The organization called it an “egregious violation of the principles of sport. A man beating up women in a boxing ring is nothing to celebrate. It should be condemned from every corner of the globe.”

Linda Blade, a former Canadian track and field coach who has trained Olympic athletes, called for the IOC to apologize to the 2024 field of boxers, acknowledge that IOC officials knew Khelif had the male karyotype, and recover the medals.

“The IOC should claim back the gold medals won by both Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, rescinding those results from the official Olympic Games archive, to be reinstated upon proof they are female via independent medical verification – undertaken outside their country of citizenship,” said Ms. Blade, author of the book “Unsporting: How trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport.”

She also said the IOC should overhaul its eligibility framework to mirror that of World Athletics, the global track-and-field governing body, which recently reinstated cheek swabs and dry blood-spot tests to check for the presence of the Y chromosome found in males.

Whether the medals won by Khelif and Lin can be reclaimed is debatable. The IOC rarely strips winners of their titles, but when it does, it’s usually because they were found to have taken performance-enhancing drugs.

Neither Khelif nor Lin has been accused of doping, and both were declared eligible for women’s boxing under IOC’s passport standard.

In addition, neither has identified as transgender.

Both are suspected instead of having a Disorder of Sexual Development that results in ambiguous genitalia, meaning that they were likely raised as girls but began producing male-level testosterone as they grew older.

Alan Abrahamson, publisher of 3 Wire Sports and an associate journalism professor at the University of Southern California, said in the June 1 article that such athletes would have inherent physical advantages over female competitors.

“The internal testes in such individuals — though they do not descend from the abdominal cavity — produce testosterone,” he said in the report. “In turn, androgen receptors read and process that testosterone. During puberty, that testosterone typically confers masculine traits that can translate into a huge advantage in sports.”

His outlet said that the leaked lab test on Khelif was done by Dr Lal PathLabs, a medical company in New Delhi accredited by the American College of Pathologists and certified by the Swiss-based International Organization for Standardization.

The test is dated March 17, 2023, which coincides with the International Boxing Association’s Women’s World Championships held March 15-19 in New Delhi. Khelif competed in the event, but was disqualified after she was deemed ineligible.

IBA officials said they notified the IOC about Khelif and Lin losing their eligibility ahead of the Olympics, but the association had little sway, given that the IOC had recently withdrawn its recognition of the IBA as the global boxing authority over concerns about its finances and judging integrity.

The IOC has repeatedly disputed the legitimacy of the IBA’s claims. In March, then-IOC President Thomas Bach dismissed them as part of a “fake news campaign coming from Russia,” referring to IBA President Umar Kremlev, a Russian with ties to the Kremlin.

In a Friday statement, the IOC declined to comment on the lab report and defended its Paris eligibility procedures.

“The IOC does not comment on unverified, leaked medical reports on individuals for many reasons, including to ensure the data and privacy protection of such individuals,” said the organization in an email. “As already stated during the Olympic Games Paris 2024, all athletes who competed in Paris did so under the relevant eligibility criteria.”

Since 2021, the IOC has deferred to the international governing bodies of each sport to determine their own eligibility rules on “gender identity and sex variations.”

“On the more general issue, the IOC has always made it clear that eligibility criteria are the responsibility of the International Federation concerned,” said the statement. “The factors that affect sports performance are unique to each sport, discipline and/or event. We await the full details on how sex testing will be implemented in a safe, fair and legally enforceable way.”

Khelif has vowed to compete in the 2028 Olympic Games, but her goal may be in jeopardy.

World Boxing, the newly recognized provisional global boxing authority, announced last month that all boxers over 18 must undergo a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) genetic test, or cheek swab, to determine biological sex before competition.

In the May 30 statement, World Boxing said it had notified the Algerian Boxing Federation that Khelif may not compete until undergoing sex testing, but later apologized for mentioning her specifically.

Khelif is also skipping the Eindhoven Box Cup tournament being held June 5-10 in the Netherlands.