Boxing has given itself an uppercut that could knock it out of the Olympics

Before we go on, two caveats. First, I’m the chairman of the Combat Sports Authority of NSW. That body has the legislative power and responsibility to carefully regulate sports such as amateur boxing, including from a health and safety perspective, insofar as those sports occur within the state.

Second, during 2020 and 2021 I chaired the Reform and Governance Commission of the International Weightlifting Federation. That commission was established because by late 2020 the International Olympic Committee was about three-seconds-to-midnight away from cutting the sport of weightlifting.

If fundamental change did not happen, the IOC would have excluded weightlifting from the Olympic Games forever, consequent to myriad doping, fraud and other corruption scandals that had infected the IWF.

So – and without meaning for this to sound the way that it will – I know something about boxing and a bit about the machinations of the IOC.

The IWF in 2020 and 2021 deployed every weapon in its arsenal to buttress itself against any change, before the organisation’s almost 200 members belatedly saw sense at a hastily convened congress held in August 2021.

That late acquiescence saved the future of the sport without guaranteeing it. Had the IWF’s membership instead remained obstinate, there wouldn’t ever have been a third Olympic gold medal for Georgian Lasha Talakhadze. And without the Olympics, weightlifting rots on the vine.

Below the belt: Boxing could be dealt a body blow.Credit: Simon Letch

But if the IWF is one of the IOC’s two wayward children, the other is the International Boxing Association – which until the end of 2021 went by the acronym AIBA. In actuality, the IBA is the most loathed of international federations.

In June 2019, a year before the IWF’s fortunes approached their nadir, the IOC suspended its recognition of AIBA due to financial, governance and sports integrity complaints including the contrived and corrupt refereeing and judging of bouts at the Olympics between 2004 and 2016.

Just as it did for the IWF, the IOC established mandatory criteria that had to be satisfied before AIBA’s reinstatement would occur. Contrasted with the fortunes of the IWF, the IBA remains a pariah international governing body.

Boxing at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics operated without the involvement of the IBA. Currently, boxing isn’t on the program for Los Angeles 2028. What the world saw in Paris may well be the last of boxing at the Olympics.

Imane Khelif celebrates her gold medal with her team and fans in Paris.Credit: Eddie Jim

The IBA, however it is repackaged and rebadged, is a complete joke of an organisation. The IOC’s stated position is that amateur boxing requires a new international governing body by 2025. A new organisation, World Boxing, was established less than two years ago. But World Boxing presently has less than 30 national federation members.

Whether the IOC’s requirements can be satisfied by World Boxing by the 2025 deadline is unknown.

Against the backdrop of that kaleidoscope of calamity, some points must be made. First, the Algerian boxing gold medallist Imane Khelif isn’t a transgender athlete. Nor is the Taiwanese boxer, Lin Yu-ting. Neither is “male”; neither ever was “male”, despite what J. K. Rowling might proclaim.

Each fighter has an unalienable right to be able to compete in their sport. The way the fighters were treated in Paris was appalling.

Second, it’s fairly recognised that for elite sport, whether a person has XX or XY chromosomes isn’t the best measure for eligibility to compete in the female category. Instead, testosterone levels are of particular importance. Certain women, assigned as female at birth and growing up as women, nonetheless can have atypical differences of sex development (DSD) which include testosterone levels higher than the typical female range, and male chromosomes.

Third, the IBA’s Technical and Competition Rules dated March 3, 2024 do define gender by specific reference to chromosomes and seemingly undignified “random and/or targeted” gender testing. It’s not certain how the IBA goes about this testing.

If there’s a suggestion that one or both athletes have a DSD condition, then nothing the IBA has done up to this point should be relied on. The fact all of this has played out in a public slanging match between the IOC and the IBA is disgraceful.

In contrast, World Athletics – the international federation notoriously strict on such matters involving athletes including Dutee Chand and Caster Semenya, and which has been involved in protracted fights in the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Tribunal – eschews any consideration of chromosome types.

Instead, WA’s Eligibility Rules for the Female Classification stipulate two criteria: An athlete with one of six specified DSD conditions must (a) be recognised at law (for example, on a passport) as being female or intersex; and (b) continuously maintain the concentration of testosterone in their system below a 2.5 nanomoles per litre, for at least 24 months.

As much as the management of the IBA best resembles an unscripted episode of Looney Tunes, the process by which Khelif and Lin were disqualified by the IBA from its 2023 World Championships must be viewed with even greater scepticism.

The IBA’s position, as to the truth on any matter of controversy, shouldn’t be accepted in the absence of independent and verifiable evidence. Unless a proper evidentiary basis can be established, the fact each fighter was disqualified by the IBA in its world title tournament in March 2023 must be treated with wariness.

The IOC’s rules applied to boxing in Paris meant that any boxer need only be recognised at law, on a passport or birth certificate, as female in order to fight in the female category. Compare that to World Athletics’ 27-page policy.

Because, finally, the stark actuality is this. Depending on the sport concerned, the rigour of rules and systems around the participation of DSD athletes at the elite level might be more or less important – or maybe not needed at all. It’s difficult to see how such rules would be important in a sport like target shooting.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s no other sport at the Olympics besides boxing in which it’s more vital to get correct the rules that govern the participation of DSD athletes.

Noting there’s no path to redemption for the IBA, if World Boxing fills the void to the IOC’s satisfaction by 2025, it’s mandatory that it develops comprehensive, intelligible and fit-for-purpose rules regarding DSD athletes and their participation in the sport. Presently, while World Boxing has a Gender Equality and Inclusivity Policy, it’s silent on issues concerning DSD athletes’ participation.

These issues, as far as boxing is concerned, are crucial for two reasons. First, it may well be that the Olympic gold medallist Khelif’s naturally-occurring levels of testosterone (whatever they are) are too high to be safe, in boxing, and too distortive of the fairness of competition. Neither the IBA’s rules, nor the IOC’s, enable verification.

Moreover, boxing is one of those sports where combatants do die. It’s through that prism that the sport’s rules must be constructed. The sport’s governing bodies and administrators must ensure that lackadaisical approaches to rule-making don’t constitute a basis for the deconstruction of the sport.