Boxing group at center of Olympics controversy targets IOC, citing Trump order on transgender athletes
The International Boxing Association said Monday it will file criminal complaints against the International Olympic Committee in the U.S., France and Switzerland.
The Swiss-based IOC allowing female boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting to compete and win gold medals in Paris last year “may serve as grounds for criminal prosecution,” the Russian-led IBA claimed in a statement.
The IBA, a boxing body that was at the center of the 2024 Olympics controversy — partly elevated by President Trump and others who falsely claimed Khelif is transgender — has been banished from the Games. It cited an executive order on transgender athletes, signed by Mr. Trump last week, to justify the criminal complaints.
“According to the Swiss law, any action or inaction that poses a safety risk to competition participants warrants investigation and may serve as grounds for criminal prosecution,” the IBA said, adding “similar complaints are to be filed with the Attorneys General of France and the USA.”
The IBA, which has been funded by Russia state energy firm Gazprom, also promised free legal advice to female boxers to pursue cases against IOC president Thomas Bach and other senior Olympic officials.
“President Trump’s order to ban transgender athletes from women’s sport validates IBA’s efforts to protect the integrity of female sports,” the boxing body’s president Umar Kremlev said on Monday.
IBA vs. IOC an old feud
The legal threats intensify a years-long feud between the now-exiled IBA and the IOC, and between Kremlev and Bach. The IOC took over control of running boxing tournaments at the past two Summer Games in Tokyo and Paris.
The IOC said on Monday the legal tactic was “just another example of IBA’s campaign against the IOC which is ongoing since their recognition was withdrawn … for issues related to governance, judging and refereeing as well as questions around their finances.”
The IOC has consistently said the boxers from Algeria and Taiwan, who were assigned female at birth and identify as women, complied with all the rules for the Olympic tournament. Both also competed in Tokyo in 2021 and did not win medals.
Khelif and Lin were disqualified from the 2023 world championships run by the IBA, which said they failed its gender eligibility tests. IBA leadership contradicted itself about the tests and declined to answer basic questions about them, The Associated Press reported. The athletes had previously competed within the governing organization without any issues.
“The two female athletes mentioned by IBA are not transgender athletes,” the IOC reiterated on Monday.
Mr. Trump has frequently misgendered the boxers as men and last Wednesday at the White House spoke without evidence of “two women or two people that transitioned and both of them won gold medals.”
Sports passing stricter rules
Mr. Trump signed the executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which aims to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
The next Summer Games are in Los Angeles in July 2028, during Mr. Trump’s presidential term, and he urged the IOC last week to change everything “having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.”
Top-tier Olympic sports track and field, swimming and cycling have already passed rules in the past three years that exclude athletes who went through male puberty from competing in women’s events. World Athletics moved on Monday toward adopting stricter rules.
Tournament rules including for gender issues at Olympic boxing are broadly the same as at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, though the IOC on Monday cited career records of the two women targeted by IBA to show they have an unremarkable number of wins by referees stopping the fight.
“Such data is relevant when evaluating whether Yu-Ting and Khelif had a heightened performance advantage and/or safety risk compared to other successful boxers in the women’s category,” the IOC said.
Impact on female athletes
Misconceptions about Khelif’s gender led to a barrage of hate and online bullying.
While the boxer used it as fuel to win gold, she said the hateful rhetoric “harms human dignity.” Khelif’s lawyer later filed a complaint in France over the online harassment, CBS News previously reported.
“I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects,” Khelif said during an interview, in Arabic, last year. “It can destroy people. It can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”