Algeria: PonteSud – Charissa Swanepoel
Algeria’s Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif must undergo genetic sex screening in order to participate in upcoming events, the sport’s governing body said, as it introduced mandatory sex testing for all boxers in its competitions.
World Boxing announced the new policy on Friday and specifically mentioned Algeria’s Khelif, who won the women’s welterweight gold at the Paris Olympics last year and prompted a gender-eligibility row.
“Imane Khelif may not participate in the female category at… any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes genetic sex screening in accordance with World Boxing’s rules and testing procedures,” the organisation said in a statement.
“World Boxing has written to the Algerian Boxing Federation to inform it that Imane Khelif will not be allowed to participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup or any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes sex testing,” it added.
World Boxing is responsible for organising bouts at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, after being granted provisional recognition by the International Olympic Committee.
Under the new policy, all athletes above the age of 18 who want to participate in a World Boxing-owned or sanctioned competition will need to undergo a PCR, or polymerase chain reaction genetic test, to determine what sex they were at birth and their eligibility to compete.
The PCR test is a laboratory technique used to detect specific genetic material, in this case the SRY gene, that reveals the presence of the Y chromosome, which is an indicator of biological sex.
National federations will be responsible for testing and will be required to confirm the sex of their athletes when entering them into World Boxing competitions by producing certification of their chromosomal sex, as determined by a PCR test.
