Former Olympic swimmer urges legal action over gender scandal

Sharron Davies, a former Olympic swimmer, has urged rivals defeated by Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting to contest the results of their matches in the Olympic tournament. During the Sex Matters panel discussion on women's rights, she asserted that the IOC neglects the issue of sportswomen's safety.

Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting, who represent Taiwan, will compete for gold medals in their weight categories at the Paris Olympics. However, their participation remains controversial due to a scandal regarding both athletes' genders.

In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified both athletes from the women's world championships after chromosome tests allegedly showed they were ineligible to compete.

The International Olympic Committee has allowed them to compete at the Olympic Games in Paris, stating that their birth certificates and passports confirm they are women. Moreover, it was acknowledged that the tests conducted by the IBA were not reliable.

According to Sharron Davies, the opponents of the two boxers at the Olympics were too frightened to question the match results. She believes they should pursue legal action.

You’d like to think that there ought to be [a route to legal challenge], from a duty of care perspective. It is the job of any organisation, whether that is a school or a sports club or a governing body, or, in fact, a world governing body like the IOC, to have a responsibility to safety. At the moment they are definitely negligent in this area when it comes to female athletes. They are not considering the damage, the potential damage, of putting a male athlete in with a female athlete. So if I was one of those female athletes, I would be trying to pursue this for sure. The problem we’ve got is that these female athletes are very young. They are very intimidated. They are very silenced. And the IOC puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the government and the national associations to make their athletes sign documentation which stops them, which takes away their voices. And that is also a problem that we have - stated the former swimmer.

This is another concern arising in the case of Khelif and Lin. Previously, Russian IBA chief Umar Kremlev intervened in the matter. During a press conference, he called the boxers "men", claiming they did not pass gender tests.

The International Boxing Federation explained that Khelif and Yu-ting possess XY sex chromosomes, a pair present in the majority of men. At the same time, it emerged that the athletes have testosterone level disorders. Therefore, the IBA's statement does not necessarily mean they are men, as Kremlev suggested.