IOC President Thomas Bach said the “hate speech” directed at boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting at the Paris Olympics is “totally unacceptable.”
“We will not take part in a politically motivated … cultural war,” Bach said at a news briefing Saturday at the midway point of the Paris Games, where he wanted to draw a line under days of global scrutiny about the female boxers’ gender.
The AP article linked above even points out that it was three days after she beat a previously undefeated Russian newcomer. By disqualifying Khelif after the fact they retroactively made the Russian boxers record “perfect” again. Now they’re just trying to cause more issues after being stripped of their international recognition a few years ago.
Honestly, these ex post facto disqualifications seem pretty fishy to me to begin with. Shouldn’t qualification happen before a match, not after the results have already been decided?
Totally, especially for something that the boxer has no control over. It’s clearly just a way for them to invalidate the results they don’t like.