By GRAHAM DUNBAR
GENEVA (AP) — The Worldwide Boxing Affiliation stated Monday it can file felony complaints in opposition to the Worldwide Olympic Committee within the U.S., France and Switzerland. The Swiss-based IOC permitting ladies boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting compete and win gold medals in Paris final 12 months “may serve as grounds for criminal prosecution,” the IBA claimed in an announcement.
“According to the Swiss law, any action or inaction that poses a safety risk to competition participants warrants investigation and may serve as grounds for criminal prosecution,” the IBA stated, including “similar complaints are to be filed with the Attorneys General of France and the USA.”
The IBA, which has been funded by Russia state vitality agency Gazprom, additionally promised free authorized recommendation to ladies boxers to pursue instances in opposition to IOC president Thomas Bach and different senior Olympic officers.
“President Trump’s order to ban transgender athletes from women’s sport validates IBA’s efforts to protect the integrity of female sports,” the boxing physique’s president Umar Kremlev stated Monday.
IOC President Thomas Bach seems on the sculpture of Pierre Decoubertin throughout the ceremony ‘One Year To Go’ for the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, on the Strehler Theatre, in Milan, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photograph/Luca Bruno)
The authorized threats intensify a years-long feud between the now-exiled IBA and the IOC — and Kremlev in opposition to Bach — which took over management of working boxing tournaments on the previous two Summer season Video games, in Tokyo and Paris.
The IOC has persistently stated the boxers from Algeria and Taiwan, who have been assigned feminine at delivery and establish as ladies, complied with all guidelines for the Olympic match. Each additionally competed in Tokyo in 2021 and didn’t win medals.
Khelif and Lin had been disqualified from the 2023 world championships run by the IBA which stated they failed eligibility checks.
Trump has continuously misgendered the boxers as males and final Wednesday on the White Home spoke with out proof of “two women or two people that transitioned and both of them won gold medals.”
Trump signed the chief order, titled ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports activities’, which goals to ban transgender athletes from collaborating in ladies’ and ladies’s sports activities.
The subsequent Summer season Video games come to Los Angeles in July 2028, throughout Trump’s presidential time period, and he urged the IOC final week to alter all the things “having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.”
High-tier Olympic sports activities observe and subject, swimming and biking already exclude athletes who went via male puberty from competing in ladies’s occasions.
The IOC was approached for remark.
