PARIS — Lin Yu-ting won featherweight gold on Saturday, defeating Poland’s Julia Szeremeta and shaking off more than a week of misleading claims that she should not fight in the women’s category.
Lin won by unanimous decision at the Roland-Garros stadium, with all five judges scoring it 10-9 in all three rounds for the fighter representing Chinese Taipei.
The gold medalist is listed at 1.70m and her Polish opponent is 1.70m, but the disparity appeared to be greater in real life, with Lin punching downhill and rarely being threatened.
Lin and welterweight gold medalist Imane Khelif of Algeria have faced a storm of questions from opponents who have wrongly questioned their gender since entering Olympic competition.
Khelif and Lin have competed in women’s events for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics, and there is no indication that they identify as transgender or intersex, the latter referring to people born with sexual characteristics that do not fall strictly into the male-female gender. . binary.
The questions surrounding their gender stemmed from a decision by the Russian-led International Boxing Association to disqualify them from last year’s Women’s World Boxing Championship in New Delhi. The IBA removed these two fighters from competition at the time, saying they had tests that questioned their gender eligibility.
The IBA said it carried out tests in 2022 and 2023 that raised doubts about the boxers’ sex because of their chromosomes.
The IBA did not release details of the tests. IOC spokesman Mark Adams called these eligibility tests “flawed” and “not legitimate” at a press conference on Sunday.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
