More to IOC gender testing than appeasing Donald Trump: ex-IOC executive
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Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won gold in the women's category at the Paris Olympics despite failing the International Boxing Association's gender eligibility tests.
PHOTO: REUTERS
PARIS – The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) new policy on gender testing could be seen as “smart positioning” given the current US political climate. Still, a former IOC marketing executive has told AFP he did not believe it was the “driving factor”.
The IOC on March 26 announced the reintroduction of gender testing to determine eligibility to compete in women’s events, an issue which caused a furore in boxing at the 2024 Paris Games.
Only “biological females” can now compete in women’s events.
The decision was welcomed by US President Donald Trump, who in 2025 issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports. The next Summer Games are in Los Angeles in 2028.
“With the current US political climate, a cynic might say that removing this pressure point before 2028 was smart positioning,” said former IOC executive Terrence Burns.
“But I don’t think that was the driving factor.”
The decision comes just over a year after Kirsty Coventry became the first woman to be elected IOC president, succeeding Thomas Bach.
Whereas Bach brought in a policy in 2021 that left individual federations to decide their own regulations, the IOC is now introducing a blanket policy across all Olympic sports.
Coventry had made resolving the thorny issue a priority after the Paris Games were rocked by a gender row involving women boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-ting.
Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association’s 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests. However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games and both boxers, who are believed to have higher testosterone levels, went on to win gold.
While Burns said the IOC had “drawn a line under” the issue with the new policy, his fellow former IOC marketing executive Michael Payne told AFP that Coventry had “moved actively and decisively”.
“There was mounting pressure to protect the principle of female sports competition,” he said.
“For all the honourable reasons about human rights, (that) everyone’s right to compete no matter their biological make-up, you could not disenfranchise 99.99 per cent of the population to address an issue of 0.01 per cent.”
In a way, Coventry can be seen to have displayed strong leadership to “solve” this issue, but it is also not as simple as it seems when it comes to the technical side of things.
The reintroduction of SRY gene testing was unwelcome news to the scientist who discovered it, Andrew Sinclair. He said ahead of the IOC announcement that the idea that biological sex is entirely defined by chromosomes is “overly simplistic”.
Sinclair was among the experts who persuaded the IOC to drop the tests before the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and he said “it is therefore extremely surprising years later there is an ill-advised move to reintroduce it”.
“Sinclair’s scepticism is real and any legal challenge will use it,” added Burns.
“But governing bodies rarely have perfect science; they have the best available tools and a decision that can’t wait. Doing nothing wasn’t an option.”
Payne is not sure how much weight Sinclair’s views will carry.
“Is there a single subject where all scientists can agree on the same solution?” he said.
“The science and circumstances, and public opinion evolve. The IOC sets the rules, albeit guided by some of the best science available.” AFP
