New Delhi: The French women’s team won’t be allowed to participate in the Boxing World Championships in Liverpool after they missed the deadline for submitting gender test results.
Under its new policy, World Boxing, the international governing body for amateur boxing, instructed the women participants to undergo mandatory genetic sex testing.
Since these tests are banned in France, the French boxing federation (FFBoxe) sent the five-member team to a lab in Leeds, UK, on Monday to conduct them
According to the French federation, the lab couldn’t provide the results in time, making the French women’s boxers ineligible for the championships, which are being held from 4-14 September in Merseyside.
French boxers, among others barred from the Worlds
“It is with stupefaction and indignation that the French team learned on Wednesday evening the French women’s boxing team would not be able to compete in the first World Championships organised by World Boxing,” it said.
“Despite guarantees given to us by World Boxing, the laboratory which they recommended to us was not up to the task of delivering the results on time.
“As a result our athletes as well as those from other countries have been caught in this trap and excluded.”
According to a report in BBC Sport, besides France, several other federations have been impacted by the new policy of the World Boxing, which, on the contrary, claims that the fault lies with the boxing federations.
“Since World Boxing first announced its intention to introduce mandatory sex testing to determine the chromosomal sex of a male or female at birth, the organisation has made it clear that testing will be the responsibility of national federations as they have the closest links and most access to their boxers and are best placed to manage the testing process,” World Boxing said.
“They also oversee the entry process for boxers so know which boxers need to be tested and when.
“It is very disappointing for the boxers that some national federations have not been able to complete this process in time, which means that some athletes have not made it through the sports entry process for the World Boxing Championships.”
Under World Boxing’s rules “all athletes over the age of 18” that wish to participate in competitions it owns or sanctions “need to undergo a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility to compete”.
Last week, Algeria’s Imane Khelif appealed against the World Boxing’s genetic sex test in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Khelif and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting were barred from the 2023 World Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA), the erstwhile world governing body, for allegedly failing gender eligibility tests.
One year later, the pair attracted massive attention at the 2024 Paris Olympics for winning gold medals after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) permitted them to compete. Their victories sparked massive controversy and global debate surrounding gender testing. Following the uproar, the IOC released a statement and said that the competitors were eligible for the women’s division in Paris as their passports said they were female and made it clear last year this is “not a transgender case”.
Under major restructuring in boxing in recent years, the IBA has been stripped of its powers for failing to implement reforms.
The IOC, which was the governing body of boxing at the Paris Games, granted World Boxing provisional recognition as the sport’s international governing body in February 2025.