No retrospective action will be taken after the controversial Olympic boxing tournament held last summer in Paris but ensuring fairness for female athletes going forward has the “overwhelming support” of International Olympic Committee (IOC) members, President Kirsty Coventry said.
The tournament drew criticism after Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting won gold medals despite being disqualified from the previous year’s World Championships over alleged gender eligibility violations.
World Boxing – now officially recognized by the IOC as the sport’s international governing body – has since introduced mandatory sex testing.
It said Khelif will not be eligible to compete in the women’s category unless she complies. Khelif has maintained that she was born female, has always lived as a woman and has competed as one throughout her career.
The IOC faced criticism for its handling of the controversy in Paris and for a perceived failure to lead on the issue more broadly.
Now Coventry, in one of her first acts as president, said there was unanimous backing from IOC members to establish a broad consensus and announced a working group would be formed to focus on protecting female sport.
She insisted, however, that nothing the group develops would affect events in Paris.
“It was very, very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category. First and foremost, we have to do that to ensure fairness,” Coventry said at a briefing Thursday.
“There was overwhelming support from all of the members ... that we should protect the female category.
“It was agreed by the members that the IOC should take a leading role in this, and that we should be the ones to bring together the experts, bring together the international federations and ensure that we find consensus.
“We understand that there will be differences depending on the sports, but it was fully agreed that as members and as the IOC, we should make the effort to place emphasis on the protection of the female category.
“We’re not going to be doing anything retrospectively. We’re going to be looking forward. From the members that were here, the sentiment was, ‘What are we learning from the past, and how are we going to leverage that and move that forward to the future?’”
Many sports, including athletics, cycling and swimming, have tightened their rules at the global level to bar competitors who have undergone any stage of male puberty from the female category.
In March, World Athletics approved swab tests to determine biological sex and eligibility for its elite female category.
Coventry added that World Athletics would be one of the global federations with “a seat at the table” in the discussions.
“Every sport is slightly different, but it was pretty much unanimously felt that the IOC should take a leading role in bringing everyone together to try and find a broad consensus, so that really is what will be guiding the working group,” she added.
Coventry, who officially became IOC president on Monday, said the working group’s membership and terms of reference would be decided in the coming weeks but said it was too soon to set timelines for when any recommendations might be brought forward.
U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this year he would deny visas to transgender athletes seeking to compete in female categories at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.
A U.K. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, which clarified wording in the 2010 Equality Act, has led several sports governing bodies to amend their transgender inclusion policies, including the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Coventry said members had also called for a review of when and how future Olympic Games hosting decisions are made, noting a desire for greater IOC involvement in the process.
She said the review would not affect ongoing discussions with countries interested in hosting future events.
