Olympic boxing chiefs risk endorsing potentially lethal violence against women

In the end, the fight lasted only seconds. After a second punch to the face, Italian woman boxer Angela Carini abandoned the match that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

Crying, she told her corner, “non e giusto”. It’s not right. Later, she said she had never experienced a punch to her face as hard as those that her opponent had just meted out. Speaking after the fight, she said: “I'm used to suffering. I've never taken a punch like that, it's impossible to continue.

“I'm nobody to say it's illegal. I got into the ring to fight. But I didn't feel like it anymore after the first minute. I started to feel a strong pain in my nose. I didn't give up, but a punch hurt too much and so I said enough. I'm leaving with my head held high.”

Her opponent was Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who towered over Carini while giving a victory salute. Khelif’s passport says female. But last year Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting were both disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi on safety grounds, after failing International Boxing Association eligibility rules that prevent athletes with male XY chromosomes competing in women's events. Females have XX chromosomes.

Both boxers accepted the decision, which was driven by the belief that men should not be fighting women. A male boxer’s punch has 2.6 times more power than any woman’s. Boxing – of all the sports – is the one where the physiological differences between male and female could kill. IBA chief executive Chris Roberts confirmed to the BBC that XY chromosomes were found in "both cases", but added there were "different strands involved in that" and they could not say Khelif was "biologically male".

Gender based on passports

Just months after that disqualification by the IBA, both boxers turned up at the Paris Olympics, waving passports that stated they are female and were welcomed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with open arms. Why?

In a statement released after Thursday’s match, the IOC confirmed that “the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport”, and went on to say they were saddened by the abuse the two athletes (Khelif and Lin) were receiving, and insisted that every person has the right to “practice sport without discrimination”. Well, that’s all right then. As long as the passport has an F stamp, the individual concerned is free to batter a woman while the world cheers their bravery, and smug bureaucrats congratulate themselves on their commitment to diversity.

However, if there is any doubt at all about whether an athlete is biologically male they should not be allowed to compete in women’s competitions.

We can but speculate on the two boxers' sex, but one explanation is that Khelif and Lin have a disorder of sex development (DSD), such as 5-ARD. Babies born with this condition may be registered as female at birth, particularly in communities where healthcare is less developed, but they go through male puberty. They have XY chromosomes. They are male, not women with high levels of testosterone, and often have a significant physical advantage over women.

‘Sport has to be fair and safe’

As human rights charity Sex Matters points out, 5-ARD is the condition that South African athlete Caster Semenya has, and which led to the Court for Arbitration in Sport ruling that 5-ARD athletes can be barred from women’s competitions. The IOC knows this. Yet on Thursday, Khelif was allowed to punch a woman in the face in the name of the Olympic ideal. And on Friday, Lin easily beat Sitora Turdibekova from Uzbekistan. 

Women’s response to Thursday’s fight was swift. Olympic medallist and campaigner for women’s rights, Sharron Davies MBE, called for the re-introduction of a simple, one-off sex screening test. Writing on social media, she described how her test took two minutes in 1976. “Cotton bud wiped on the inside of your cheek. Female athletes voted 82 per cent in favour of keeping it in 1996. The IOC still stopped it so why ask?” she said. Tennis coach Judy Murray agreed. “This should never have been allowed to happen. Bring back the swab test. Sport has to be fair and safe for biological women.”

Author and women’s rights activist, JK Rowling, could barely contain her anger. Addressing the IOC, she wrote: “A young female boxer just had everything she’s worked and trained for snatched away because you allowed a male to get in the ring with her. You’re a disgrace, your ‘safeguarding’ is a joke and #Paris24 will be forever tarnished by the brutal injustice done to Carini.”

Obligation to prevent violence against women

But perhaps the most damning intervention came from the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem. She is currently working on a report on violence against women in sport which will be published in October. Following Carini’s defeat, she said that no female athlete should be exposed to this level of “physical and psychological violence based on their sex”.

On the day that Carini was battered live on television in the name of sport, the Council of Europe celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Istanbul Convention on violence against women. This treaty is based on the understanding that violence against women is committed because of their sex and states that it is the obligation of states to take measures to prevent violence against women, protect its victims and prosecute the perpetrators.

The IOC is not a state, but it runs the world’s biggest sporting event, with more than 200 countries taking part in the Paris Olympics. It has more influence and power than many countries. It has a moral duty to protect the women athletes who take part, and to provide a role model for the world. But by not facing up to reality, the IOC not only risks condoning male violence against women, but elevating it to an Olympic sport.