Tuberville questions Olympics letting boxers who once failed gender test fight in female division

GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Thursday criticized Olympic officials for allowing two boxers in the women's division to fight, despite the International Boxing Association a year earlier having disqualified them over its rule that athletes with XY chromosomes cannot compete in women’s events.

The boxers in question are Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan. 

The International Olympic Committee has since stripped the IBA of its status as the global governing body for boxing over governance issues and judging scandals, according to Yahoo News.

As a result, the Paris Olympics' rules are under the umbrella of the IOC’s Paris 2024 boxing unit, which has more relaxed rules than the IBA and has chosen to disregard the results of Khelif and Yu-Ting’s 2023 gender eligibility tests.

"Everyone competing in the women's category is complying with the competition eligibility rules," IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said after Khelif defeated Italy's Angela Carini in 46 seconds.

Tuberville disagreed with the decision to allow Khelif to compete after previously failing a gender eligibility test.

"I am glad Angela Carini was able to escape this unfair fight with her life," Tuberville, of Alabama, wrote on his X account. "She should have NEVER been put in a position where she had to box against a man. Men don’t belong in women’s sports. EVER."

Carini said after the match that she was not making a political statement but that she had an issue with her nose. 

“I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough,’ because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match," Carini said.