LIN Yu-Ting has faced numerous challenges on her path to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Despite a previous ban for failing a gender eligibility test in 2023, she was cleared to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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Who is 2024 Olympics boxer Lin Yu-Ting?
Lin Yu-Ting is a Taiwanese boxer who was born on December 13, 1995, in New Taipei City.
She developed a love for sports early on, joining an athletics team as a child.
Growing up in a family of four children, Lin achieved good results in athletics and won awards which helped her family financially.
However, her progress in athletics didn’t meet the tough expectations she gave herself which led to her to switching to boxing.
The decision was driven not only by her athletic ambitions, but also by a desire to protect her mother.
Lin looks up to Ukrainian boxer Vasiliy Lomachenko, who is a two-time Olympic champion, two-time world amateur champion, European amateur champion, and junior world champion.
Her coach, John Tseng Tzu-Chiang, has also been a significant influence on her boxing career.
She has achieved notable success in the discipline and won a gold medal at the 2018 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships as a bantamweight.
Lin followed this with another medal at the 2019 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships.
In March 2023, Lin faced a significant setback when she failed a gender eligibility test and was stripped of a bronze medal from the International Boxing Association Women’s World Boxing Championships.
This medal was subsequently awarded to Bulgarian boxer Svetlana Staneva.
Outside of boxing, Lin has broadened her horizons by spending time as an exchange student at Beijing Sport University in China.
She also began serving on the champions and veterans committee at the International Boxing Association in 2021.
What country does Lin Yu-Ting represent in the Olympics?
Lin Yu-Ting represents Taiwan in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Despite the controversy in 2023, Lin Yu-Ting’s eligibility for the 2024 Paris Olympics was confirmed on July 29, 2024.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Lin complied with all rules required to compete in the 2024 Olympics.
The statement said: “All athletes participating in the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations.
“The IOC will not discriminate against an athlete who has qualified through their IF, on the basis of their gender identity and/or sex characteristics.”
Olympics gender controversy
By Mark Fleming
THE International Olympic Committee (IOC) stirred up a huge controversy by clearing two women to box who had previously failed a gender test.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were disqualified at the Women’s World Championships in New Delhi, India, in March 2023.
Lin Yu-ting was stripped of a bronze medal after failing a gender eligibility test.
Khelif was disqualified in New Delhi for failing a testosterone level test.
Officials found tests showed they had ‘XY chromosomes’ — which indicates a person is biologically male.
Rare ‘intersex’ medical conditions, medically known as differences in sexual development (DSDs), can also mean outwardly female individuals can have ‘male’ chromosomes, or vice versa.
The Russia-led International Boxing Association organised that event but is no longer recognised by the IOC.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams said: “These athletes have competed many times before for many years, they haven’t just suddenly arrived – they competed in Tokyo.
“The federation needs to make the rules to make sure that there is fairness but at the same time there is the ability for everyone to take part that wants to. That is a difficult balance.
“In the end the experts for each sport are the people who work in that. If there is a big advantage that clearly is not acceptable, but that needs to be a decision made at that level.”
Both Khelif and Lin competed at the delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. Lin is a two-time winner at the Asian Women Amateur Boxing Championships.
The IOC said all boxers in Paris “comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations”.
The controversy follows the famous case of Caster Semenya.
South African middle-distance runner Semenya has a condition which means her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than normal for women.
She won gold in the 800m at London 2012 and Rio in 2016 but was unable to compete at Tokyo in 2021 after World Athletics brought in new rules independently of the IOC at the time.