Olympic gold medalist Lin Yu-ting has been cleared to return to world boxing competition after undergoing gender eligibility screening.
The 30-year-old from Taiwan was at the center of a fierce gender eligibility debate alongside Algeria’s Imane Kelif at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where both boxers won Olympic gold medals.
Lin and Kelif have been banned from the 2023 World Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA).
The IBA was stripped of its status by the International Olympic Committee before Paris, when the IOC ran the boxing competition and both Lin and Khelif met the required qualification rules at the time.
World Boxing took over as the sport’s governing body last year and implemented a gender eligibility policy in August, requiring all fighters to undergo a one-off genetic test designed to check for the presence of the Y chromosome.
Lin has not competed in several international competitions since the introduction of the test, but following an appeal from the Taiwan Federation, World Boxing announced that Lin will be eligible to compete starting with the Asian Boxing Championships in Mongolia from March 29 to April 10.
World Boxing did not specify the results of Lin’s test, but said in a statement: “We can confirm that the boxer is eligible to compete in the women’s division of the World Boxing Championships.”
“(We) appreciate the way the appeals process has been approached and the acknowledgment of World Boxing’s requirements to ensure that the eligibility policy, designed to provide safety and sporting integrity, is properly implemented and adhered to.”
Neither Lin nor Kelif have competed in official international competition since the Olympics, with the latter saying earlier this year that he would be willing to take on World Boxing’s new gender test if it meant he could defend his Olympic gold medal at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
