Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting won the 57kg final at Paris 2024 on Saturday, completing a gold medal haul for the two female boxers who have been embroiled in a gender controversy at the Games.
Lin, 28, defeated Poland’s Julia Szeremeta, 20, by unanimous decision on the centre court ring at Roland Garros, where the crowd applauded her victory.
Taiwanese and Algerian Imane Khelif were criticised throughout the tournament by some rivals and conservative politicians such as Donald Trump, who called for their withdrawal from the Games because they failed a gender eligibility test at last year’s women’s World Cup.
A day after Khelif’s triumph in the 66kg final, Lin also had the opportunity to claim her first Olympic title.
The tall Taiwanese boxer started the fight by keeping her distance from Szeremeta and taking advantage of the fact that, with her extra height of ten centimetres, her arms could reach her rival from a distance.
The Taiwanese took a slight advantage in the first round which gave her confidence to engage in several intense exchanges of blows with her young opponent.
Szeremeta, who had upset Tokyo 2020 runner-up Nesthy Petecio of the Philippines in the semi-finals, was becoming desperate in the face of Lin’s accurate counter-attacking play.
Under scrutiny
The Pole was forced to fight back in the final round and caused Lin to briefly fall, but the Taiwanese managed to get out of the bind and then stay out of Szeremeta’s reach.
As in her three previous fights, Lin was declared the winner by all five judges.
After the referee raised his arm, Lin bowed four times to acknowledge the applause of the crowd, which was close to the 15,000-seat capacity, and knelt in the ring.
The night before, the Philippe-Chatrier track was packed with Algerian fans who celebrated the victory of their boxer Imane Khelif.
After competing quietly in Tokyo 2020, both Lin and Khelif found themselves in the centre of a wave of criticism in Paris from some rivals and conservative politicians such as Donald Trump, as well as from numerous users on social media, who questioned their status as women due to the fact that they failed a gender test at the Women’s World Cup last year, the details of which are unknown.
Both were disqualified from the tournament by the International Boxing Association (IBA), an organization that is at odds with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The IOC has withdrawn the IBA’s right to organise boxing at the Games due to ethical and transparency issues, and its own president, Thomas Bach, defended the presence of Lin and Khelif in the women’s tournament in Paris.
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