Elsewhere, Nancy Hogshead – the American swimmer who won three golds at the 1984 Games, waded into the row, claiming that ‘gender ideology will get women KILLED’.
Hogshead wrote: ‘Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan are scheduled to compete in women’s Olympic boxing – despite being disqualified last year for having XY chromosomes, the male phenotype. Let’s remind ourselves that males – however they identify – pack a punch that is 162 per cent more powerful than women – THE biggest performance gap between men and women. Gender ideology will get women KILLED.’
One X user added: ‘Men punching women is now officially an Olympic sport’.
An IOC spokesperson said: ‘All athletes participating in the boxing tournament comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations, in accordance with the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit.’
But Olympic chiefs’ decisions to ditch rules on gender testing for athletes have been branded ‘crazy’ by critics.
Speaking to MailOnline sports scientist Professor Ross Tucker said: ‘Would you allow a 90kg fighter to fight against a 60kg fighter?
‘Because that’s more or less what the difference is in strength and power between male and female boxers.’
Tests on both Khelif and Yu-Ting revealed XY chromosomes in their systems.
Rare ‘intersex’ medical conditions, medically known as differences in sexual development (DSDs), can also mean outwardly female individuals can have ‘male’ chromosomes, or vice versa.
Speaking yesterday International Olympic Committee spokesperson Mark Adams said: ‘Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules.’
He added: ‘They are women in their passports and it’s stated that this is the case, that they are female.’
Sports scientists told MailOnline that an absence of clear policy by the Olympics in this area had allowed the bizarre situation to develop.
Prior to 2021, the IOC set thresholds for the maximum amount of testosterone — the ‘male’ sex hormone — competitors in women’s events could have. These were picked up in blood tests, similar to ones for doping.
Rules on testosterone limits had been previosuly brought into sharp focus by the very public and famous case of Caster Semenya.
Semenya has a condition which means her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than normal for women.
She became unable to compete at Tokyo in 2020 after World Athletics brought in new rules independently of the IOC at the time.
IOC’s own testosterone monitoring policies were halted three years ago and replaced with a policy of ‘fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identify and sex variation’.
The IOC now provides individual sporting bodies in every country with ‘ten guiding principles’ they can use to make their own policies.
This controversial document states that athletes with ‘sex variations’, another term for DSDs, have ‘no presumption of advantage’ and that they should be allowed to compete in the category of their gender identity.
There are exceptions, with framework stating that an ‘evidence-based approach’ can be used to exclude athletes who have a ‘consistent unfair disproportionate advantage’ or if there is an ‘unpreventable risk’ to the safety of other athletes.
However, some sport scientists say that, by themselves, these guidelines are wooly and open to interpretation.
Federations that govern rugby, track and field, swimming and cycling have all introduced rules in some form to address biological males in women’s sport, though the exact details of policies vary.
And boxing did as well, with the International Boxing Association (IAB) requiring athletes to undergo ‘gender assessment’.
Though it doesn’t detail the exact nature of these assessments, it is this test that Khelif and Lin failed last year at the IAB’s Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi.
At the time IBA president, Umar Kremlev, claimed the tests had proven both Khelif and Lin ‘had XY chromosomes’.
He added that they ‘uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women’.
Under these same rules and test results Khelif and Lin wouldn’t be able to compete this Olympics, but the IAB was stripped of its role in governing the sport for the Paris games by the IOC due to problems with the latter’s governance.
The IOC created via a new body, the Paris Boxing Unit (PBU), to determine eligibility for competitors.
Documents from the PBU make no mention of gender or sex testing for male or female events, though they do set limits for the age of competitors, a passport being an acceptable ID for athletes and requiring boxers in the women’s category to declare if they are pregnant.
Defending its decision to approve Khelif and Lin as women the IOC’s Mr Adams added: ‘These athletes have competed many times before for many years. They haven’t just suddenly arrived.’
But sports scientist Professor Tucker, said the absence of clear policy by the IOC in this area had allowed this situation to occur.
‘Last year [Khelif and Lin] did not meet eligibility requirements and the only reason they do now is the body that did rule them ineligible has been moved aside,’ he said.
‘It’s due to a vacuum of policy, there’s no policy now.’
