OLYMPICS/CTOC president: Lin Yu-ting is a female athlete

Paris, Aug. 4 (CNA) Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC) President Lin Hong-dow (林鴻道) on Sunday said that Taiwan's boxing queen Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷), who has become embroiled in a gender dispute while competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, is female.

Noting that Lin has taken part in multiple international competitions, including the Asian Games, the CTOC head said "she has won endorsements from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), proving that she is 100 percent a female athlete."

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"There is not a slightest doubt about her gender," Lin Hong-dow asserted, urging other countries not to "speak without thinking."

"I have met Lin several times at the Athletes' Village, and she has been at ease, maintaining her composure and confidence," he said.

"As far as I know, Lin has kept a positive mindset, given that the IOC has repeatedly and firmly asserted that all the athletes have passed tests, and no gender issue exists," Lin Hong-dow said.

On Saturday, IOC President Thomas Bach called "hate speech" directed at boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting "totally unacceptable," according to a foreign wire service.

"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, as he tried to draw a line under days of global scrutiny about the gender of female boxers.

"What is going on in this context in the social media with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse, and fueled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable," he
said.

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Lin, 28, along with Imane Khelif of Algeria, has been at the center of a controversy over her gender in the ongoing Paris Olympics, renewed by celebrities like J.K. Rowling, author of the "Harry Potter" series, who shared an article by the Guardian about the controversy surrounding Lin and Khelif on X in late July: "What will it take to end this insanity? A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer killed?"

Meanwhile, Lin advanced to the semifinals after beating Svetlana Staneva of Bulgaria 5-0 in the 57-kigogram divison on Saturday, securing at least a bronze medal for Team Taiwan.