Australian boxer and featherweight champion Skye Nicolson has come to the defense of two boxers at the center of a gender eligibility controversy at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Nicolson, who competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, took to social media to address the situation involving Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting after it surfaced during the 2024 Paris Olympics that both athletes were previously disqualified from the 2023 International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Championships over what president Umar Kremlev said was a positive test for “XY chromosomes.”
Imane Khelif of Algeria and Angela Carini of Italy react after their fight. (Reuters/Isabel Infantes)
Nicolson said in a series of videos posted to her Instagram story Friday that both boxers, whom she has fought, have been mistreated in the media.
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“I’ve actually fought and sparred both of the girls. They were born female. They were born with an XY chromosome, which is the male chromosome, but they were born with female bodies. They have the physical attributes of a female,” she said.
“They have grown up as girls, as females, as women. They have competed as women the whole time. These are not naturally born men who have decided to call themselves women or identify as women to fight women in the Olympics. So, at the random World Championships, when IBA decided to do chromosome testing, that is when these two athletes were discovered to have XY chromosomes. It wasn’t a testosterone test. It wasn’t that they failed anything like that. It wasn’t a physical test. They do not have the physical attributes of a male.
“And while it is a bit of a gray area, I think the abuse and the power of the media, and people just jumping on the bandwagon without knowing all the details, is honestly horrible.”
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting celebrates after defeating Kazakhstan’s Karina Ibragimova in the women’s 54-57-kilogram final boxing bout during the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, in China’s eastern Zhejiang province Oct. 5, 2023. (Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP via Getty Images)
IOC PRESIDENT LABELS SCRUTINY ABOUT TWO OLYMPIC BOXERS WHO FAILED GENDER TEST AS ‘HATE SPEECH’
The IBA has maintained that Khelif and Lin both have competitive advantages that should preclude them from competing against women, but Nicolson argued that if that were the case, Khelif and Lin would be winners in every fight.
“If they were men, and it was dangerous for girls to be fighting them, they would be winning gold at everything. They’re not. They have been beaten by girls on numerous occasions, both of them. And I feel like that says it all.
“These girls have represented their country on numerous occasions for many, many years now as female fighters, and they do not deserve this mistreatment,” she added. “I think they have been so unfortunate enough to even be in the situation that they’re in and to get all this scrutiny as well.”
Skye Nicolson during the WBC Interim world featherweight title fight between against Lucy Wildheart at 3Arena Dublin Nov. 25, 2023, in Dublin, Ireland. (James Chance/Getty Images)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has defended its position to allow the two boxers to participate in the 2024 Paris Games. On Saturday, President Thomas Bach reaffirmed there was “never any doubt” about their gender.
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“We will not take part in a politically motivated … cultural war,” Bach said. “What is going on in this context, in the social media with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse, and fueled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable.”
Bach initially said in his address “this differences in sex development (DSD) case, this is about a woman taking part in a women’s competition, and I think I have explained this many times.”
The IOC later clarified that he meant that it was “not a transgender case.”
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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