Intersex athletes will be on the podium

But the IOC boss is confused

Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting will become Olympic medalists in women’s boxing during the next few days.

Both have now advanced to the semi-finals of their respective divisions and even if they lose at that stage they will still receive bronze medals. That’s because in boxing, ironically for reasons of safety, there is no deciding bout to decide third place. Losing semi-finalists are deemed third equal and receive a bronze medal.

Based on form to date though, the likelihood is high that both will fight for, and probably win, gold medals.

If you’re following the Olympics only through the lens of the New Zealand media you will be unaware that this saga remains one of the highest profile ongoing controversies in Paris.

Oliver Brown,  Chief Sports Writer for London’s Daily Telegraph, described the media presence for Khelif’s quarter final as greater than for a Champions League football final.

However, it would appear there were no New Zealand reporters there and our media outlets have hardly reported this story at all.

Why?

Frankly it’s far more interesting than interviewing somebody who finished 6^th in the men’s shot put.

For what it’s worth, I accept that both Khelif and Lin have lived their lives as women. But reportedly tests at last year’s world championships showed both with XY or male chromosomes.

Therefore they are androgynous or intersex, likely have undescended testes and high levels of testosterone and are more akin to a male athlete than a normal female. The modern category for these people is DSD, standing for “differences in sexual development.”

The key point here is that Khelif and Lin are taking part in a contact sport where despite protective equipment, the athletes can be put in serious danger by their opponent.

One world sporting body has already forced a high performing DSD athlete out of her sport because they believed her natural state, especially her levels of testosterone, gave her an unfair advantage. That was South African Caster Semenya, who was instructed by World Athletics to lower her testosterone levels through medication or not compete. Understandably the two-time Olympic and three time World champion refused to alter her natural state and stopped competing.

World Athletics have now updated their rules to say that a DSD athlete must have a testosterone level below 2.5 nanomoles per litre in order to compete in women’s events and must have maintained this level for six months before competition.

(Women naturally have 0.5 to 2.4 nanomoles per litre. Men usually range from 10 to 35 nm/l)

So the precedent for having Khelif and Lin to reduce their testosterone before the Olympics had been set by World Athletics. It’s obvious the IOC – who are running this year’s Olympic boxing competition instead of the International Boxing Association – decided that wasn’t needed.

Yet this is the very organization that insists an athlete’s safety is always their number one priority. It’s doubtful Angela Carini, who copped a couple of massive blows from Khelif in their round of 16 bout, believes the IOC is keeping its promise.

I thought Semenya was treated unfairly. She couldn’t do anything about the way she was born and was never physically hurting any of her opponents, despite having a massive natural-born advantage. Other athletes have had physical advantages too, like long legs or arms, yet were never told to shorten them!

But boxing is different. It is a contact sport where the aim is to hurt one’s opponent. So elevated levels of testosterone in a DSD athlete, especially when they could be upwards of 15 times that of their opponent, make it an unfair contest.

That’s why the IOC should have stopped Khelif and Lin from competing in Paris.

It’s too late now. The IOC is not backing down, in fact they’ve doubled down, and in a most embarrassing way.

The IOC President Thomas Bach fronted the world’s media yesterday and said a woman should be defined as registered female at birth, raised as a female and to have a passport identifying as female.

Simple isn’t it!

All of which does not take into account DSD. On that issue Bach made a complete fool of himself.

 “This is not a DSD case” he said. “This is about a woman taking part in a woman’s competition.”

Within 45 minutes the IOC had to issue a statement contradicting and correcting what the President had said  and proving that Thomas Bach is not just out of touch with reality, he is also hopelessly confused.

Then he shut the gate on any prospect of the IOC changing its mind on Khelif and Lin.

 “We will not take part in a politically motivated cultural war. And allow me to say that what is going on across social media, with all this aggression and abuse, fuelled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable.”

This is not a cultural war. It is a matter of fairness and athlete safety. IOC credibility is on the line.

But then on reflection, that line was breached years ago.