Boxer stripped of medal for failing gender test

The announcement by the World Boxing Federation (IBA) only said that Lin "was stripped of his medal because he did not meet the standards". Meanwhile, the Taiwan Boxing Federation (TBF) said that the boxer born in 1995 "is accused of showing abnormal signs in a sex test on March 16".

Lin entered the semi-finals before losing to Kazakh boxer Karina Ibragimova 3-4 on March 23. On March 25, when she was about to go to the podium to accept the award, the IBA announced that she had stripped Lin of the bronze medal and gave it to Stavena Svetlana Kamenova - a Bulgarian boxer who lost to Lin in the quarterfinals.

Lin is a famous boxer, who won the 2018 WWBC gold medal in the 52-54kg category, the 54-57kg gold medal in 2022, the bronze medal in the 50-52kg ASIAD 2018. According to TBF, Lin has never failed the gender test and will resist IBA decision report. "We and Lin are disappointed with the IBA announcement," TBF general secretary Peng Chun-ming told Channel News Asia.

According to Mirror Media, female boxers like Lin have to control their weight and adjust their menstrual cycle to fit the competition schedule. Therefore, boxers often take certain drugs with side effects that affect hormones, leading to abnormal results in sex tests.

In addition to Lin Yu-ting, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was disqualified a few hours before the 63-66kg final for the same reason. IBA decided to choose Thai boxer Janjame Suwannapheng, who lost to Khelif in the semi-finals, to the final of Chinese boxer Yang Liu.

"There are some countries that don't want Algeria to win the gold," Khelif told Ennahar TV. "This is a big conspiracy and we will not be silent."

Khelif was the African champion and won the 2022 world silver medal in the 60-63kg category. With the disqualification, Imane missed the opportunity to compete for the championship and lost at least 50,000 USD (about 1.2 billion VND) in prize money. Meanwhile, Lin Yu-ting lost $25,000 in prize money for the bronze medal.