The fight between Imane Khelif and World Boxing continues. At the heart of a controversy over his genre during the Paris Games, the Algerian, 26, disputes before the courts the ban on him to participate in international competitions without beforehand a chromosomal test, informs this Monday, September 1, the Arbitral Sports Tribunal (TAS). The date of the hearing is not yet fixed.
Concretely, Imane Khelif requests the cancellation of this decision made at the end of May by World Boxing which deprived her of a return to the competition initially scheduled a week later, during the Eindhoven tournament, the first event submitted to the new regulations. She also wants to be able to participate “Without test” At the Worlds in Liverpool, who started on Thursday until September 14.
This last request has almost no chance of succeeding since the CAS, whose procedures are confidential and the hearings almost always behind closed doors, specifies having refused to grant a suspensive effect on the call of Algerian boxers, formed on August 5.
At the Paris Games, Khelif had been the target of attacks and a disinformation campaign, just like the Taiwanese Lin yu-tee, presenting it as a “Fighter man”. The 26 -year -old boxing has won in the -66 kg final, just like yu -tears in featherweights. The controversy continued far beyond the Olympic Games: in February, IBA announced that it would continue the IOC for authorizing Khelif to boxes at the Games.
The athlete replied that these accusations were “False and insulting”. Adding: “It is a matter that does not only concern me, but also the broader principles of equity and respect for procedures in sport.” She promised to initiate her own legal action to refute the accusations. “I’m not going anywhere. I will fight in the ring, I will fight in court and I will fight in the open until the truth is undeniable ”she said then. The Algerian, which has become a real icon in his country, has already announced in the spring that it would target a new gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.
In the meantime, its legal action will offer the first opportunity for a legal debate on restoration in world sport – by World Boxing but also in swimming and athletics – genetic tests intended to establish biological sex, in force in the Olympic Games between 1968 and 1996.
By a PCR test, it is a question of conditioning access to the female category to the absence of “Sry gene”, located on the chromosome y masculinity, method touted for its simplicity by its promoters.
Such chromosomal screening would thus dismiss transgender athletes, as well as part of those which have always been considered to be female but present xy chromosomes, one of the forms of “differences in sexual development” (DDS) or intersuction. This process – prohibited in France -, however, arouses many criticisms, including the World Medical Association, human rights organizations and the scientific community, because it is considered unreliable and reducing from a biological point of view.
