Boxer Lin Yu-ting fights for Olympic gold after defeating Turk Esra Kahraman – before defeated fighter makes ‘X’ gesture in protest
The Olympics are being celebrated with two female boxers accused of being male after the second of the two won her semi-final tonight and is in with a chance of gold.
Lin Yu-Ting, 28, of Taiwan defeated 27-year-old Turkish Esra Yildiz Kahraman to win the final in the women’s 57kg category.
She is competing in the Olympic boxing final alongside 25-year-old Algerian Imane Khelif, after both faced fierce opposition during their participation in the Paris Olympics.
Lin’s progress tonight and reaching the final has earned her a lot of criticism, both from her own critics and from Khelif who has fought her way to gold amid the biggest controversies of Paris 2024.
Olympic leaders will also feel vindicated in their decision not to suspend her and Khelif after the International Boxing Federation said they had failed a gender test at a tournament in India last year.
Lin Yu-ting defeated Turkey’s Esra Yildiz Kahraman to fight for an Olympic gold medal
Lin (left) is one of two boxers at the centre of a gender eligibility dispute in Paris
Tonight she let her boxing skills do the talking and won unanimously against her opponent who was five centimeters shorter.
Lin braved the storm that followed her into the ring, bowing and saluting before the 13,000 spectators at Roland Garros, which has been converted from a tennis stadium into a boxing arena and is home to both must-see matches.
Khelif’s box office appeal has led Olympic officials to schedule her bout against China’s Liu Yang as the final bout on Friday night, so American and international TV audiences can watch after a day of work.
Lin, 28, and Khelif, 25, were disqualified from last year’s women’s world championships after both failed key gender tests.
Boxing fan Gilles Johanne, 49, from Paris, said: ‘This is fantastic for the Olympics. I am so happy she won. I don’t care what others say about her. She is an Olympic athlete, just like everyone else.
“My wife and I feel really sorry for this young woman. It must have been really lonely for her this week.”
But Lin, who is 1.75 metres tall, was registered as a girl at birth, as was Khelif, who has a female passport.
Olympic leaders have defended the participation in Paris 2024 of both Khelif and Lin, who started boxing at the age of 13.
Kahraman made a crossed fingers symbol after losing via unanimous decision
Lin braved the storm surrounding her participation and will now face Poland’s Julia Atena Szeremeta
The boxer underwent additional tests by the Taiwanese Sports Administration ahead of the Olympics, which confirmed her eligibility following her disqualification last year.
Lin’s Olympic officials called the accusations discriminatory and described them as a deliberate attempt to undermine the boxer’s mental state.
The IOC said it based its decisions on boxing participation on the gender rules that were in place at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Several sports have updated their gender rules in the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. The track governing body also tightened its rules for athletes with differences in sex development last year.
The IOC is responsible for boxing in Paris, having revoked the International Boxing Federation’s Olympic status, following years of governance problems, a lack of financial transparency and many alleged cases of corruption among judges and referees.
The IBA is headed by President Umar Kremlev, who is Russian. He brought in Russian state-owned Gazprom as his primary sponsor and moved much of the IBA’s operations to Russia.
However, Olympic officials say the case surrounding the two boxers is a “minefield” and that no forensic and irrefutable scientific evidence has been presented to prove that either athlete was not a woman.
IOC President Bach said: ‘We are talking about women’s boxing. We have two boxers who were born as women, who were raised as women, who have a passport as women, who have fought as women for many years. This is the clear definition of a woman.’
Kahraman’s X symbol was also shown by Lin’s previous opponent Svetlana Staneva
The two fighters congratulated each other and Kahraman held the ropes open for Lin
But the IBA’s genetic testing showed that Khelif and Lin have male XY chromosomes in their DNA, but neither of them are transgender.
High-profile figures including JK Rowling, British Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies and former boxer and two-time Olympic champion Nicola Adams have spoken out against their involvement in women’s sport.
Today, JK Rowling doubled down on her opposition to the boxers who failed the gender test.
She wrote on X: ‘Commentators who pretend that critics of the IOC’s reliance on documents rather than gender tests think Khelif is trans are strawmen. I am not claiming that Khelif is trans. My objection, and that of many others, is that male violence against women is becoming an Olympic sport.’
Davies said: ‘This is shocking. The IOC are a bloody disgrace. They are effectively legalising wife beating. This has got to stop!!! What the hell is wrong with them?’
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss asked: ‘When will this madness stop? Men cannot become women. Why doesn’t the British government stand up to this?’
However, Olympic presidents have criticised what they call an online “hate campaign” against the boxers.
Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori, Khelif’s quarter-final opponent, had posted a photo of a “beautiful woman and a beast” in the run-up to their fight and said she didn’t care whether to fight “a man or a woman.”
Olympic leaders have defended the participation of both Khelif and Lin (right) in Paris 2024
The photo later disappeared from her social media profile.
The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee has filed an official complaint with the IOC to protest the online harassment of Khelif, which constitutes “a serious violation of sports ethics and the Olympic Charter by one of the participants in the boxing tournament at the Paris Olympic Games,” according to a statement on the committee’s Facebook page.
The statement did not name the boxer who allegedly posted derogatory comments about the Algerian, but warned that the IOC “has issued a final warning to remove any post related to our heroine Iman Khalif.”
It added: ‘We reserve the right to prosecute anyone who participated in the horrific campaign against our heroine Imane Khelif.’
