IBA President Umar Kremlev has demanded Imane Khelif has her Olympic gold medal stripped after affirming her as a male during his latest interview. Producing reported documents of two tests conducted by Imane Khelif and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting with the IBA, Kremlev has maintained the notion the two athletes are males competing as females. Kremlev has further accused the IOC of using politics to ignore the IBA’s findings and allow the two alleged men to compete in female competition.
Umar Kremlev, head of the International Boxing Association (IBA), has started a campaign to strip Algerian gold Olympic medalist Imane Khelif of her medal after revealing a set of incidents and tests confirmed she was actually male.
Citing a test Khelif conducted in 2022 during the 2022 Women’s World Boxing Championships held in Turkey, Kremlev maintained during his interview that the post-competition tests both revealed Khelif and Taiwanese athlete Lin Yu-Ting had XY chromosomes, denoting them as men:
“The first test was carried out during the 2022 World Championships, after we noticed some suspicious, suspicious moments,” Kremlev told the Daily Mail.
“We decided to test a group of athletes, not just one or two. Two of the results came back, let’s say, abnormal.
“It was the first time we had encountered a situation like this, so we felt it was necessary to conduct a second round of testing to be absolutely sure before making such a serious decision.“
The second test would be performed in 2023 during the 2023 World Boxing Championships held in India, which produced the same results for both athletes and culminated in their controversial disqualification from the competition.
Khelif and Yu-ting would later be allowed to compete in the 2024 Olympics by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ― which would regulated amateur boxing during the Olympics in the place of the discarded IBA ― where they both ultimately won gold medals in their respective weight classes.
In August of 2024, the IOC ― then headed by Thomas Bach ― cited the inclusion of both Khelif and Yu-ting in the Olympics as legitimate given as they pointed towards multiple inconsistencies with the IBA’s tests ― including the IBA’s own minutes report signifying there wasn’t a clear procedure yet in place for gender testing at the time of the 2023 World Championships.
Referencing to Thomas Bach stepping down from his position as president of the IOC this month on June 23rd, Kremlev has argued that Bach’s reasoning for including Khelif and Yu-ting was due to identity politics.
Notably, no sex testing was performed by the IOC on either Khelif or Yu-ting, with their sex eligibility having been on based on their passports rather than actual tests.
Imane Khelif was also specifically mentioned in a press release by World Boxing where they announced the introduction of mandatory sex testing for athletes aged 18 or above. World Boxing would later apologize for including Khelif’s name in their press release, while Khelif would notably not compete in this year’s incarnation of the Eindhoven Box Cup organized by the organization ― despite competing in the same competition in 2024.
Though Kremlev did not explicitly mention World Boxing, he cited the introduction of sex testing by certain sports institutions as a direct result of the IBA’s efforts in conducting sex tests in 2022 and 2023 ― though Kremlev failed to mention the discrepancy within their tests which were not considered to be up to standard.
During a press conference the IBA held during the 2024 Olympics, the organization held a spontaneous press conference in the wake of the controversy that followed after Khelif’s Olympic bout against Italian Angela Carini in what appeared to be a clear response and protest against the inclusion of both Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting.
The press conference failed to introduce new findings as the tests conducted in 2022 and 2023 allegedly confirming Khelif and Yu-ting had XY chromosomes were again referenced.
With the IBA now replaced by World Boxing as the primary governing body for amateur boxing, which further includes them regulating boxing during the upcoming 2028 Olympics, World Boxing’s sex testing methods will be conducted by medical professionals with experience in the field.
As Imane Khelif has her indicated her wishes to compete in the 2028 Olympics, the true nature of her sex will inevitably be revealed with World Boxing now regulating both the Olympics’ preliminary and main competitions, as well as their own versions of international boxing competitions.
World Boxing is expected to host the 2025 World Boxing Championships for the first time in September, though the IBA hosted their version of the same competition earlier in this year in March.
