Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) would not attend this year's World Boxing Championships in Liverpool due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing (WB).
The Chinese Taipei Boxing Association (CTBA) yesterday said that it had submitted all relevant tests to WB, but had not received a response as of yesterday, the departure day for the games.
Photo: Taipei Times
The CTBA said its decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation.
Lin, who won a gold medal in the women's 57kg boxing in last year's Paris Olympics for Taiwan, was embroiled in a controversy about her gender during the event, despite the International Olympic Committee's continued confirmation of her eligibility as a female boxer.
Lin has since missed multiple international competitions, including dropping out of a year-end event in the UK last year due to the WB allegedly questioning her eligibility after she had arrived in the country.
WB president Boris van der Vorst later apologized for the lack of clear gender testing policies and standards.
In May, Lin again dropped out of the Thailand Open games after arriving there, due to disagreements over sex testing methods.
On May 30, the WB announced a mandate that athletes more than 18 years old take polymerase chain reaction genetic tests to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility to compete in games it holds.
However, Lin opted out of the World Boxing Cup in June due to what Taiwanese officials characterized as a lack of transparency about "complementary measures" regarding the sex test.
On Aug. 20, the federation released a confirmation of its sex testing standards, clearly stating that testing results would directly determine whether the tested athlete is female or male.
The CTBA said that it had convened a medical team consisting of experts in genetics, physiology and sports medicine over a month ago to discuss sex testing for athletes and had actively reached out to the WB since last month for clear participation regulations.
It expressed hopes that the WB could respond as soon as possible, as the matter of Lin's eligibility "cannot drag on like this."
According to sources, the WB is to issue a decision after holding four to six weeks of discussions on its policies.
Lin's gender controversy began when she was disqualified from the 2023 Women's World Boxing Championships, with the organizer, the International Boxing Association, claiming that she had failed a sex verification test.
The association, which was stripped of Olympic recognition by the International Olympic Committee later that year over governance and financial issues, raised the controversy again before and during the Paris Games.
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