During the announcement of launching the implementation of a gender testing policy for the employees of their competitions, World Boxing falsely named Olympic gold medallist Imane Khelif and in this statement, they apologized to the Algerian Boxing Federation for this mistake.
The international boxing body recently revealed a new policy which states that all athletes over the age of 18 have to be a subject of a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test to find out the chromosomal sex besides their actual gender. This step is consequent with the last year’s gender controversy that occurred in debate of participants in different events such as the Paris Olympics, where Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA).
In the initial announcement, World Boxing said that Khelif would be expected to do the test before participating in the Eindhoven Box Cup in the Netherlands, which is scheduled for June 5–10. However, the organization now has admitted the mistake with its president agreeing that it was wrong to single out an individual athlete in a public announcement and apologizing for it.
The federation, in particular, a request letter of apology, showed that it was ready to be more careful and receptive to the feelings of the Algerian Boxing Federation at the time when it implements the new policy
Following the IOC’s decision to end its affiliation with the IBA, World Boxing has been temporarily recognized as the sport’s new governing body for upcoming Olympic Games including Los Angeles 2028.
