Imane Khelif Appeals World Boxing Eligibility Decision
Olympic champion Imane Khelif has filed an appeal against World Boxing’s decision preventing her from participating in future events unless she undergoes genetic sex testing.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced this Monday that the Algerian boxer formalized the appeal last month.
Khelif aspired to compete in the world boxing championship, which starts this Thursday. However, the CAS denied the request to suspend World Boxing’s decision until the case was resolved.
Khelif won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics last year, amid strong media attention on her and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, also a gold medalist. The previous governing body of Olympic boxing, the Russian-dominated International Boxing Association, disqualified both boxers from their 2023 world championships after claiming they failed unspecified eligibility tests.
However, the IBA was banished due to decades of irregularities and controversies. The IOC managed the last two Olympic boxing tournaments instead, applying the sexual eligibility rules used in previous editions of the Olympic Games. According to those standards, Khelif and Lin were eligible to compete.
World Boxing has been provisionally approved as a boxing organizer at the Los Angeles 2028 Games and has faced pressure from boxers and their federations to establish sexual eligibility standards.
In May, the governing body announced mandatory sex testing for all athletes and specifically mentioned Khelif when announcing the policy, something for which it later apologized.
Khelif plans to defend his welterweight gold medal at the Los Angeles Games. The new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, has initiated a working group to analyze gender eligibility issues.
