The Russian-led IBA, which was stripped of its status as amateur boxing’s governing body by the IOC in 2019 because of fears over its governance and regulation, called a news conference in Paris during which president Umar Kremlev and chief executive Chris Roberts were expected to shed new light on the disqualifications.
But after technical difficulties delayed the start of the news conference that ran for more than 100 minutes, Kremlev and Roberts gave contrasting and often contradictory accounts about the disqualifications.
Roberts said the pair had “chromosome tests” but Kremlev appeared to suggest the tests were to determine the fighters’ testosterone levels.
The IBA said the tests were sent to two different laboratories that are accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).
However, Wada has told BBC Sport it does not oversee gender tests and its work only relates to anti-doping matters.
The people clamoring against the inclusion of biological outliers are operating under the false -and frankly poorly thought out- idea that sports are fair and that it’s only by training the hardest that you can and will achieve victory, shonen style.
Ultimately the only completely fair-ish competition is the one where you try to outdo your previous best performance and beat your own records. Otherwise, there are so many other variables you’d have to correct for to level the playing field (and testosterone levels is not a great pick for that anyway) that you might as well have single athlete categories.
OTOH we live in a world were it is necessary to regulate the many variables because it is now possible to splice in duplicates of genes (for say HGH) via a retrovirus, or create protein producing tumours that ‘naturally’ elevate hormone levels etc…
By arguing against regulating variables you essentially promote the creation of monstrous behemoths created in labs all competing for our amusement until they reach their life expectancy of 25 years.
Bottom Line: You HAVE to regulate the variables if you want to have competitive sports between peoples. The only question is what is the allowable ranges and I’d love to hear from someone qualified to explain what those could/should be.
It’s a bit ridiculous to say the only obstacle between us and “monstrous behemoths created in labs” is some sports regulations ^^'. Luckily there are already laws that severely restrict what you’re allowed to do with genetic engineering, so don’t you worry.
But coming back to your “monstrous behemoths”, wouldn’t some basketball players for example already fall in that category ? How tall is too tall? When it’s about basketball, you could be 8 feet 1 (2.46 m for my metric brethren) and no-one would try to have you banned from the game, they would probably congratulate you on your lucky genetics instead. Similarly, I’ve never heard of any suggestion of, say, enforcing a minimum resting heart rate for endurance based sports.
Yet if you’re a woman and too muscular for some obscure regulatory body’s liking, you face the risk of being ostracized and banned from competing. The same genetic lottery winning ticket would in this case be considered an unfair advantage. This goes to show that unfairness is not rooted in any hard, undeniable, mesurable quantity, but is at its root a cultural phenomenon. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder, there can be no objective measure for it, -which is why I’m say it simply doesn’t truly exist in sports.
Yeah, nobody ever breaks the law. Especially in regards to sports competition. :D
wouldn’t some basketball players for example already fall in that category ?
I wasn’t addressing eugenics actually. Just lab BS which is a far more immediate concern. I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes the new reason to break out torches and pitchforks in maybe 2 generations+ from now.
