Australian boxer and featherweight champion Skye Nicolson has come to the defence of two boxers at the centre of a gender eligibility controversy at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Nicolson, who competed in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, took to social media to address the situation involving Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting after it emerged during the 2024 Paris Olympics that both athletes were previously disqualified from the 2023 International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Championships for what President Umar Kremlev said was a positive test for “XY chromosomes.”
Algeria's Imane Khelif and Italy's Angela Carini react after their fight. (Reuters/Isabel Infantes)
Nicolson said in a series of videos posted to his Instagram story on Friday that both boxers, whom he has fought, have been mistreated in the media.
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“I've actually wrestled and sparred with both 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 woman,” she said.
“They've grown up as girls, as females, as women. They've competed as women all along. They're not men who were naturally born and decided to call themselves women or identify as women to fight women at the Olympics. So at the random World Championships, when the IBA decided to do chromosome testing, that's when it was discovered that these two athletes had XY chromosomes. It wasn't a testosterone test. It's not that they failed something like that. It wasn't a physical test. They don't have the physical attributes of a man.
“And while it's a bit of a grey area, I think the abuse and power of the media, and people just jumping on the bandwagon without knowing all the details, is honestly horrifying.”
Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan celebrates after defeating Karina Ibragimova of Kazakhstan in the women's 54-57 kilogram boxing final during the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province, Oct. (Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP via Getty Images)
IOC President calls review of two Olympic boxers who failed gender test a 'hate discussion'
The IBA has maintained that both Khelif and Lin have competitive advantages that should prevent 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 fight them, they would win gold in every discipline. That's not the case. They have both been beaten by girls on numerous occasions. And I think that says it all.
“These girls have represented their country on numerous occasions over many, many years as female fighters and they do not deserve this mistreatment,” she added. “I think they have been unfortunate to be in the situation they are in and to be subject to all this scrutiny.”
Skye Nicolson during her WBC interim featherweight world title fight against Lucy Wildheart at 3Arena Dublin on November 25, 2023, in Dublin, Ireland. (James Chance/Getty Images)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has defended its stance on allowing both boxers to compete at the 2024 Paris Games. On Saturday, its president, Thomas Bach, reaffirmed that there was “never any doubt” about their gender.
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“We will not participate in a politically motivated culture war,” Bach said. “What is happening in this context, on social media with all this hate speech, with this aggression and this abuse, and fuelled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable.”
Bach initially said in his speech: “In this case of differences in sexual development (DSD), it is about a woman who is participating in a women's competition, and I think I have explained this many times.”
The IOC later clarified that what it meant was that “this was not a transgender case.”
Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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