Boxer Skye Nicolson came to the defense of Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting amid an eligibility controversy surrounding their involvement in the Paris Olympics.
Australian boxer and featherweight champion Skye Nicolson has come to the defense of two boxers at the center of a gender eligibility controversy at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Nicolson, who competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, took to social media to address the situation involving Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting after it surfaced during the 2024 Paris Olympics that both athletes were previously disqualified from the 2023 International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Championships over what president Umar Kremlev said was a positive test for “XY chromosomes.”
Nicolson said in a series of videos posted to her Instagram story Friday that both boxers, whom she has fought, have been mistreated in the media.
“I’ve actually fought and sparred both of the girls. They were born female. They were born with an XY chromosome, which is the male chromosome, but they were born with female bodies. They have the physical attributes of a female”, she said.
