International Boxing Association to explain its banning of the two XY boxers in hostile Paris media conference

In what was the wildest press conference in decades, perhaps the most toxic in Olympic history, the attempt by the International Boxing Association to explain its banning of two boxers descended into a vicious and nasty stoush.

How is this for an opening gambit? The International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has overseen the corruption of women’s sport according to the English translator telling us the words of the boxing boss, Umar Kremlev.

In what was the wildest press conference in decades, perhaps the most toxic in Olympic history, the attempt by the International Boxing Association to explain its banning of the two XY boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting descended into a vicious and nasty contretemps among the 200 standing room only attendees on Monday, with television cameras lined against all walls.

Both the national Olympic Committees of Algeria and Taiwan had sent legal letters to the IBA warning them not to disclose private medical information.

“We have pledged to protect boxers, we have tests results, the genetic testing shows these are men” the IBA president Umar Kremlev finally said after much tip-toeing around abstract test results.

There were some unedifying scenes at the IBA media conference. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

And so sparked some sharp sparring firstly from a German journalist who demanded to know the salaries of those on the top table, an Italian asking about right wing politics, and apparent activists, one who accused the association of destabilising Khelif on the eve of her crucial bout to progress to a gold medal. A British journalist pressed about why the IBA took eight months before ordering a second genetic test if the dangers were so omnipresent to female boxers. Towards the back of the room Khelif’s boxing team mate Roumaysa Boualam even started her own counter-huddle with the cameras telling them; “Imane is a woman, they are lying, it’s insane they don’t need to do this, they (the IOC and IBA) can sort it, they don’t think about how she feels about it,’’ adding it was “bullying’’.

IOC boss Thomas Bach came under attack at the IBA media conference. Picture: Franck Fife/ AFP

All the while, Kremlev, beamed in from his Russian base an hour late, was dispatching his grim tirade against Bach: the fiestiness a stark contrast to the IOC press conferences of obfuscation and avoidance. Even the IOC athletes commission head Emma Terho waffled about following the rules when asked whether athletes supported the reintroduction of sex testing at the Games.

But there was none of this mystification from Kremlev who said “today we are witnessing the failure, the death of female boxing, the corruption in the judges, all these things, happen when Mr Bach is president”.’

Kremlev was upset about Bach’s oversight of the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony and the Last Supper controversy. “As a Christian believing in God I disagree with this presentation of the scripture, it should be respected and I would never like to see that happen again in sports.”

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The IBA medical chief, a gyneacologist of 30 years, Ioannis Filippatos hit out at the IOC’s passport definition of a woman: “I know Bach says the science is poor, but for me the science is not poor, medicine is knowledge, it is not opinion. “I know who is woman and who is man… the biological world does not change.’’

He added that to protect women’s category “it must be only woman, if you do not agree let’s change the name to a mixed category, everybody can do everything he wants, but here in sport, in competition we have two categories, men and women.’’

After the toxic hour, Filippatos was cornered and said that with further testing he could definitely rule if either of the contentious boxers were “DSD (intersex) female”, a low chance, he admitted. But an ultrasound would show whether there were internal testes explaining the high testosterone levels.

But he said both boxers had not sought further medical tests to try to keep boxing. At this an Algerian video journalist was so combative he almost came to blows with the doctor. The venue, a 19th century Parisian salon with art deco mirrored wall panels, was the only charming part of this utterly extraordinary afternoon.

Originally published as International Boxing Association to explain its banning of the two XY boxers in hostile Paris media conference