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World Boxing, the International Government Body for Boxing Sports, announced a new policy on Wednesday that presents mandatory sexual evidence to ensure that only women compete in the women’s category.
The change occurred a year after the world saw Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, two boxers who previously failed in the sexual tests, won gold medals of female Olympic boxing in Paris.
The races of the Khelif and Yu-Ting gold medal caused a global reaction and controversy amid the growing concerns about men who compete in women’s sports. Now, World Boxing has introduced a policy that will effectively avoid similar incidents in future events.
Imane Khelif of Algeria and Luca Anna Hamori from Hungary fight each other. (Sina Schuldt/Picture Alliance through Getty Images)
“World boxing respects the dignity of all people and is anxious to ensure that it is as inclusive as possible, but in a combat sport such as boxing, we have the duty to take care of the security of security and competitiveness that are the key principles that have guided the development and creation of this policy,” said World President Boris Van der Vorst in an announcement.
“It has been a long and detailed process, but it was vital that we examine all the medical, legal and sports problems posed by this problem and I am sure that when introducing evidence to certify the eligibility of an athlete to compete as a man or woman, the new policy on ‘Age and sexual weight’ will deliver sports integrity and protect the safety of all participants.
“We recognize that the problems related to eligibility in boxing are more pronounced in women’s events, so we have made the decision to implement the policy in the first female category, where it will apply to the next World Boxing Championship and this communicated to all our National Member Federations some time ago, to allow them to start the test process.
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Imane Khelif of the Algeria team looks against Anna Luca Hamori of the Hungary team during the 66 kg 66 kg quarterfinal round on the eight of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in North Paris Arena on August 3, 2024 in Paris, France. (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
The new policy declared that national teams will be responsible for testing and confirming the biological sex of their athletes when entering them in competitions, through PCR or genetic detection test of Medical Medical Functional.
National teams must now provide the certification of their chromosomal sex and the breach of providing it will make the athlete not eligible to compete and could even lead to sanctions against the athlete and the national team.
The mandatory evidence will come in just in time for the World Boxing Championship of 2025 in Liverpool as of September 4.
Lin Yu-Ting observes before the semifinal match of 57 kg female against Esra Yildiz Kahraman of the Turkey team on the twelve of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Roland Garros on August 7, 2024 in Paris, France. (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
In a May letter to the Khelif National Team, the Algerian Boxing Federation, World Boxing, announced that it would adopt mandatory sexual evidence and that Khelif would need to pass one to compete in the Eindhoven Cup in June.
Khelif ended up jumping the tournament.
President Donald Trump said there will be a “solid form of evidence” when asked about the possible genetic tests for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games at a press conference on August 5.
