Olympics 2024: The case of Angela Carini and Imane Khelif and the power struggle between the IOC and the Iba

Last night, Thursday 1 August, the IOC issued a communiqué on the querelle that had erupted in recent days and was exacerbated by the Italian boxer's withdrawal after not even one minute of fighting. The International Olympic Committee naturally defended its decision to admit Khelif to the Olympics, branding as 'arbitrary' the opposite decision of the Iba to exclude her from the 2023 World Cup final.

For the IOC, Khelif meets the criteria for admission to the women's competitions of the Olympics, which have been the same since Tokyo 2021 and for all qualifying phases to Paris 2024. The IOC says it has seen "misleading information" circulating about Khelif and another boxer who was excluded with her at the 2023 World Championships, Taiwan's Lin Yu-tin.

For the IOC, 'every person has the right to participate in sport without discrimination. All athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games shall comply with the eligibility and registration regulations of the competition, as well as all applicable medical regulations established by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU). As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of athletes are based on their passport."

He added: 'We have seen misleading information in reports about two female athletes competing in the Paris 2024 Olympics. The two athletes have been competing in international boxing competitions in the women's category for many years, including the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships and IBA-sanctioned tournaments. These two athletes were victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the 2023 IBA World Championships, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process. According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially only taken by the IBA Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer. The IBA Governing Council only ratified it later and only then requested that a procedure to be followed in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also state that the IBA should establish a clear procedure on gender testing'.

Finally, it emphasises, the IOC "eligibility rules must not be changed during ongoing competition and any changes to the rules must follow the appropriate procedures and be based on scientific evidence. The IOC is committed to protecting the human rights of all athletes participating in the Olympic Games, as per the Olympic Charter, the IOC Code of Ethics and the IOC Strategic Framework on Human Rights . The IOC is saddened by the abuses that the two athletes are currently suffering'.

At the root of this sports governance clash is the IOC's decision in 2020 to oust the International Boxing Association (a decision also confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport's ruling), which for this reason was not involved in the organisation of the Games.

Scandals, corruption and a lack of financial transparency: these are the accusations levelled by the IBC at the Iba, which has since moved its headquarters to Russia and is now chaired by Umar Kremlev, a businessman close to Vladimir Putin and financed mainly by Gazprom, the Russian state oil company.

The International Boxing Association clarified its position a few days ago, taking advantage of the media clamour that was beginning to raise the case to obviously attack Thomas Bach's IOC, which has since suspended boxing from the sports allowed in Los Angeles 2028.

"On 24 March 2023," reads the communiqué, "the IBA disqualified the athletes Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif from the New Delhi 2023 World Championships. This disqualification was due to their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participation in the women's competition, as set out and stipulated in the IBA regulations. This decision, taken after careful review, was extremely important and necessary to maintain the level of fairness and utmost integrity of the competition. It should be noted that the athletes were not subjected to a testosterone test, but underwent a separate and recognised test, the details of which remain confidential. This test indicated conclusively that both athletes did not meet the required eligibility criteria and were at a competitive advantage over the other female competitors. The decision taken by the IBA on 24 March 2023 was subsequently ratified by the IBA Board of Directors on 25 March 2023. The disqualification is based on two tests conducted on both athletes. Test performed during the IBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Istanbul 2022 and New Delhi 2023."

The IBA also pointed out that 'Lin Yu-ting did not appeal the IBA's decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), thus making the decision legally binding. Imane Khelif initially appealed the decision to CAS, but withdrew his appeal during the process, again making the IBA's decision legally binding. Our committees rigorously reviewed and approved the decision made during the World Championships. While the IBA remains committed to ensuring competitive fairness in all our events, we express concern about the inconsistent application of eligibility criteria by other sports organisations, including those overseeing the Olympic Games. The various IOC regulations on these issues, in which the IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and the safety of female athletes. For clarification on why the IOC allows athletes with competitive advantages to compete in their events, we invite interested parties to seek answers directly from the IOC."

Although driven out by the IBC, the IBA in May set prize money for athletes who would win medals in Paris, sending the IBC into a rage: 'Any boxer whose national federation is a member of the IBA will not be allowed to participate in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. The IOC has taken note of the decision of the International boxing association (Iba) regarding prize money. As always with the Iba, it is not clear where the money comes from. This total lack of financial transparency was precisely one of the reasons why the IBC withdrew the IBA's recognition'. For the IBC, the Iba 'was not prepared to explain transparently the sources of its funding or to explain its total financial dependence at the time on a single state-owned company, Gazprom. Due to the suspension and subsequent withdrawal of recognition by the IOC in 2023, the Iba was not involved in either the qualification or the organisation of the boxing tournament for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and is not involved for Paris 2024 either. The Olympic qualifiers and tournaments were and are organised by boxing units established by the IOC for the protection of the athletes, the National Boxing Federations and the respective National Olympic Committees (NOCs). For all these reasons, boxing is currently not included in the sports programme of the Los Angeles 28 Olympic Games to the extent that the IOC can no longer organise such Olympic boxing competitions. Olympic boxing must be organised by a credible and well-governed international federation'. On the horizon is precisely the creation of a new international federation, World Boxing, which the current boxing leaders would naturally like to join.

The lack of homogeneous criteria on the delicate cases of athletes in sexual transition or with special biological situations at the level of international regulations also stems from this situation of infighting. A power struggle in which the lives of boys and girls who sacrifice their youth to pursue a sporting dream are crushed, and who see their hopes extinguished beyond their own merits or demerits.

Khelif is not transgender, but intersex. Basically, she was born a woman but has high biological values and testosterone levels, almost masculine, which includes her in the area of so-called 'intersexuality'.

With serious governance, in which attention to the athletes is paramount, one would ask oneself how to handle these situations in order to balance in the best possible way the individual's interest in achieving fulfilment in sport without suffering discrimination of any kind and respect for the rights of others and the fairness of competitions.