TAIPEI (Reuters) -Lin Yu-Ting, one of two boxers at the centre of a gender dispute at last year’s Paris Olympics, will not compete at the upcoming world championships in Liverpool, an official at the Taiwan boxing association, who preferred not to be named, confirmed on Tuesday.
Last month, governing body World Boxing announced that women boxers at the world championships will have to undergo mandatory sex testing, as part of a new eligibility policy. The policy came just over a year after Lin and Algerian Imane Khelif both won gold in Paris amid a gender-eligibility row.
Lin’s coach Tseng Tzu-chiang had said on August 21 that she had no plans to skip the world championships.
“She has not considered withdrawing from the competition because of the new gender tests. We will submit all the relevant documents requested by the organisers, as part of normal procedures,” Tseng had said at the time.
However, a source at the Taiwan boxing association has said Lin would not be going to the world championships, declining to provide additional details.
Reuters has contacted World Boxing for comment.
The world championships will take place from September 4 to 14 and are the first to be organised by World Boxing since it replaced the International Boxing Association earlier this year.
On Monday, Khelif appealed to sport’s highest court against a World Boxing decision barring her from upcoming events unless she undergoes genetic sex testing.
The appeal seeks to overturn the ruling and allow Khelif to compete at the world championships without having the test, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said, adding that it had dismissed her request to suspend the decision while the case is heard.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by Pearl Josephine Nazare in Bengaluru;Editing by Christian Radnedge)
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