Boxer Lin Yu-ting became embroiled in her second gender controversy in the ring tonight after her defeated Olympic opponent made the ‘X’ sign to question her gender, which is being closely watched in Paris.
Yu-Tin easily defeated Turkey’s Esra Yildiz, but made a double ‘X’ sign with her index fingers, just as her Taiwanese Bulgarian opponent had done in the previous match.
Yildiz showed respect to Yu-Tin by touching gloves and even holding the ring open for her as she climbed out of the ring.
But married Yildiz was also seen making the ‘X’ gesture with her fingers.
When later asked why she had done that, she replied, “No comment.”
Turkey’s Esra Yildiz Kahraman makes an ‘X’ sign to appeal her loss to Lin Yu Ting of China Taipei
Male chromosomes are designated with an X and a Y, while females have two X’s.
Yu-Ting also left the Roland Garros arena without commenting on the incident, but thanked her opponent and the fans in her country.
But the Olympics are about to be celebrated with two female boxers who were accused of being men, but who can now win gold.
28-year-old Lin Yu-Ting defeated her Turkish challenger in the final of the women’s 57 kg category on Saturday evening.
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.
Yu-Ting’s progress tonight to reach the final was a major setback for her critics, but also for those of Khelif, who 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.
Tonight she let her boxing skills speak for themselves, even against her opponent who was five centimeters shorter.
Yu-Ting braved the storm that followed her into the ring and bowed and saluted before the 13,000 spectators at Roland Garros, which has been converted from a tennis stadium into a boxing arena and will host both matches.
Khelif’s box office appeal has prompted Olympic officials to schedule her bout with China’s Liu T=Yang as the final bout on Friday night’s schedule for American and international TV audiences to watch after a day at work.
Lin Yu-Ting, 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 Yu-Ting, 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 Yu-Ting, who started boxing at the age of 13.
The boxer underwent additional tests by the Taiwanese Sports Administration ahead of the Olympics, which confirmed her eligibility following her disqualification last year.
Yu-Ting’s Olympic officials called the allegations 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.’
But the IBA’s genetic testing showed that Khelif and Yu-Ting 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.”
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.’
More to follow…