Imane Khelif ‘has Right To Appeal’ Over Gender Tests But Will Miss World Championships

Imane Khelif has nan correct to entreaty against World Boxing’s determination barring her from events unless she undergoes familial activity testing but nan Algerian has not entered nan world championships successful Liverpool, World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst has said.

World Boxing, which will oversee boxing successful nan 2028 Olympics, introduced mandatory activity testing for each boxers successful its competitions successful May, little than a twelvemonth aft Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting won golden successful Paris amid a gender-eligibility row.

On Tuesday, Khelif appealed to nan Court of Arbitration for Sport – sport’s highest tribunal – seeking to overturn World Boxing’s ruling asking boxers to undertake a PCR (polymerase concatenation reaction) familial test. “She has nan correct to do this [appeal],” Van der Vorst said connected Wednesday.

“For us, it’s important to accent that we introduced mandatory testing successful bid to person safe and competitory competitions, adjacent competitions. We announced it successful May. And for us, everyone is equal. Every female present has to taxable respective documents, including nan activity testing.”

The World Boxing Championships get nether measurement successful Liverpool connected Thursday and erstwhile asked if Khelif would person grounded nan test, Van der Vorst said: “It’s excessively early to tie conclusions. She has simply not entered connected behalf of her ain federation present successful Liverpool.”

The Algerian Boxing Federation has not responded to a petition for comment

On Tuesday, World Boxing confirmed Taiwan’s Lin would not beryllium competing astatine nan world championships either. “I cognize that she besides is not portion of nan introduction database of nan National Federation,” Van der Vorst added.

The Dutchman had apologised successful June erstwhile World Boxing specifically named Khelif successful their announcement connected mandatory activity testing. However, he defended nan determination for specified tests to guarantee they had “safe and adjacent competitions”.

“We are speaking not only astir amateur boxing, but Olympic boxing. For us, that’s our brand, because that’s nan ’why’ of World Boxing. We established World Boxing successful bid to prevention nan Olympic dream,” he said.

“Boxing is simply a combat athletics and it is important to person safe and adjacent competitions. So, for us, it’s really important to present this benignant of testing. I deliberation it’s an important measurement that we show that we want to protect female boxing.”