French Boxers Out of World Cup Due to Gender Tests

French Boxers Out of World Cup Due to Gender Tests

Paris – Five French female boxers will miss the World Championship starting this Thursday in England due to complications with the new gender tests, mandatory after the controversy at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The French team expressed “astonishment and indignation” at not being able to have their boxers compete after missing the deadline to obtain the test results from England. These tests are prohibited in France under these sporting circumstances, due to a law that protects women’s privacy. World Boxing announced its mandatory testing policy on May 30, in response to last year’s controversy in Paris, where Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan won gold medals amid a campaign questioning their eligibility. Female boxers must undergo a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test or an equivalent genetic screening test to determine their sex at birth. The new boxing governing body, which was not involved in the Paris Olympics and was provisionally recognized by the IOC in February, suggested that the French federation was responsible for the missed deadline before the world championships in Liverpool.

“It is very disappointing for female boxers that some national federations have not been able to complete this process on time,” World Boxing said on Thursday in a statement.

World Boxing

The French boxing federation stated that it had been told to expect the results “in 24 hours and that, therefore, we could present them, without fail, when registering our female boxers”. The five excluded boxers are Romane Moulai, Wassila Lkhadiri, Melissa Bounoua, Sthélyne Grosy and Maëlys Richol. Maëlys Richol shared a message on her Instagram page from Estelle Mossely, former candidate to lead the French boxing federation, calling for the resignation of the responsible officials. Khelif will also not compete in Liverpool after failing to obtain an urgent provisional resolution from the Court of Arbitration for Sport in his wider appeal against World Boxing’s testing mandate.