Second gender row boxer Lin Yu-Ting is GUARANTEED an Olympic medal after winning featherweight quarter-final amid eligibility furore

The second boxer at the heart of the Olympic gender battle has secured himself a medal.

Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting unanimously defeated her opponent, Bulgaria’s Svetlana Staneva, this morning to secure a place in the semi-finals in Paris, where she finished at least a shared third place.

Yu-Ting and Algeria’s Imane Khelif were banned from last year’s International Boxing Association World Championships after reportedly failing a gender test.

However, both have been given permission by the IOC in the French capital to fight in the women’s category, after Russia’s IBA was stripped of the right to organize boxing at the Games.

The 28-year-old Yu-Ting shook hands with Staneva after the match, after which the Bulgarian held the rope open to let her leave as a sign of respect.

It was not only revenge for the 28-year-old Yu-Ting on her opponents, but also for Staneva, who won her bronze medal at last year’s world championships in New Delhi.

Despite Yu-Ting beating 34-year-old Staneva in India, the result of their fight was overturned after doubts were raised over the Taiwanese boxer’s gender, with the fight subsequently declared a no contest.

But this morning, Yu-Ting was unanimously declared the winner and was warmly greeted by Olympic fans at the Nord Paris Arena.

Yu-Ting said: ‘I have received many messages of support from my country and people in Paris. I thank them.

‘But I haven’t been able to read them because I turned off my social media.

“I’m going to go ahead and go for the gold medal. I won a bronze medal, but I want to win the gold.”

She did not comment on the controversy surrounding her participation in the Olympic Games.

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 Paris 2024 involvement of both Khelif and Yu-Ting. Yu-Ting took up boxing at 13 to protect her mother from domestic abuse.

The boxer, who is now assured of a bronze medal and will fight for gold, underwent additional tests by the Taiwanese sports administration ahead of the Olympics, which confirmed her eligibility after 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.

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.’