Amid all the joy and exultation of the Paris Olympics, amid the beauty and the splendour, a tragedy is playing out in front of our eyes here, too. On Sunday morning at the Parc des Expositions, not far from Charles de Gaulle Airport, they staged its second act.
A boxing ring sat in the middle of a stark hall in an exhibition centre and as the preamble got under way, a man wearing a bowler hat and a oversized false moustache led the communal singing of Champs Elysees, a song for the carefree.
They cranked up the playlist after that and did their clever trick of making it appear that athletes from the 1924 Paris Olympics, pictured on the big screen in sepia or black and white, were singing modern hits. Highway to Hell is one of the favourites.
After they played ‘I Will Survive’, Lin Yu-ting, a 28-year-old featherweight from Taiwan, was accompanied into the arena by three coaches and climbed eagerly through the ropes. For some, that square of canvas is a place to fight. For Lin, it has become a place to escape.
It is hard to know where to start with the furore that has enveloped Lin and Algerian welterweight Imane Khelif at these Olympics other than to say that the sanctity of women’s sport needs to be protected as a priority.
Gender row boxers (Lin Yu-ting pictured) being allowed to compete in the Olympics is wrong
Lin and Imane Khelif (pictured) are being used as pawns in the political war between the International Olympic Committee and the International Boxing Association
The two boxers being allowed to compete is does suggest rank incompetence and alarming Luddism on the part of the IOC and its president Thomas Bach, pictured
Tests, sanctioned by the International Boxing Association and conducted at the Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul in 2022 and New Delhi last year, showed that Lin and Khelif had XY chromosomes and did not meet the eligibility standards for female competition.
It feels dangerously wrong that they are competing here in a sport where unfair advantages in physical strength could cause serious injury or death. That is not their fault but it does suggest rank incompetence and alarming Luddism on the part of the International Olympic Committee and its president Thomas Bach.
There is a caveat here. The tests appear to have been conducted by a reputable laboratory in New Delhi but this case is piled so high with charlatans and liars and grandstanders and ignorance and prejudice and fear and anger that you need wings to stay above it.
Do you trust these people? You only need to take a cursory glance at the mayhem that ensued and the insults that flew at the hastily arranged IBA press conference in Paris on Monday afternoon to see that no one is innocent in this case. Except perhaps Lin and Khelif.
‘The tests show they were men,’ the IBA’s Russian president Umar Kremlev said. ‘We don’t verify what they have between their legs. We don’t know if they were born like that, or if some changes were made.’ This is how the IBA talks about human beings.
Lin and Khelif have been made into an industry all of their own, a touchstone both for legitimate concerns and for unfounded fears. They are aces in the hole, collateral damage in a political war between the IOC and the IBA and the monstrous egos happy to use them as their pawns.
This is the world that Lin, 28, walked into in the North Paris Arena on Sunday morning. Lin is fighting in a second Olympics in the women’s 57kg weight, a boxer who was raised as a girl and grew up as a woman and took to boxing to try to protect her mother from domestic violence.
Once inside the ring, Lin ran to its centre and bowed theatrically to all four corners of the arena and then once again to the referee, who looked like a rather lugubrious version of Minnesota Fats.
IBA president Umar Kremlev, pictured on the screen, oversees an organisation which has been stripped of recognition and left unable to oversee boxing at the Olympics
The IBA held a hastily arranged press conference which descended into mayhem and insults
Svetlana Staneva (right) gave as good as she got but ended up losing to Lin on Sunday
Lin was in red. The opponent, Svetlana Staneva, was all in blue, and both knew that whoever won their quarter final would be guaranteed a medal. The noisy Taiwanese contingent in the crowd cheered Lin to the rafters and continued their support all the way through the three-round bout.
It was not a fight for the purists. Lin threw plenty of haymakers but did not connect with many of them. It was clear Lin was the better fighter from the start though and a stiff jab rocked Staneva back on her heels in the first round.
The Bulgarian boxer complained several times about Lin’s roughhouse tactics and use of elbows and Lin was warned several times by the referee. Staneva gave as good as she got. In the third round, she shoved Lin to the ground. It was more like a judo throw than a punch.
Lin was knocked down in the final round but it was more of a tackle than a punch and it did not count. Every time Lin connected with a punch, which was increasingly often, the three coaches standing by her corner, applauded loudly and shook their fists in the air.
When the bout finished, the music exploded again. ‘Baby, imma have the best freakin’ night of my life,’ the words went, ‘and wherever it takes me, I’m down for the ride.’ Lin tried to touch gloves with Staneva, who was reluctant to reciprocate.
Before the result was announced officially, Staneva stood in the ring and made the sign of an X twice with her fingers to suggest, presumably, that she was all woman. And that Lin was not. The judges awarded the fight to Lin by unanimous decision.
Lin stopped in the mixed zone after the fight to talk to Taiwanese journalists, who took care not to ask difficult questions. One was asked why he had not talked to Lin about the controversy that is raging.
Staneva made an X sign in the ring, to suggest, presumably, that she was all woman and that Lin was not
Lin will fight for a place in the final on Wednesday night as the row continues in Paris
The controversy over the two athletes continues to overshadow the Olympic boxing event
‘We want her to win gold,’ he said, ‘so we do not want to put her under any more pressure than she already faces.’
As Lin walked past, Staneva’s coach was talking to Bulgarian reporters and holding a white piece of paper. He had written some words on them. ‘I only want to play with women; I am XX,’ they read.
The coach said he had written the note. ‘This is maybe the message from every single woman boxer in this tournament,’ he said.
On Wednesday night, Lin fights for a place in the final. On Tuesday night, Khelif fights for a place in the women’s 66kg final. On Monday, the IBA held their press conference in a room called the Hall of Mirrors.
Paris Olympics venues are stunning
One of the joys of being at the Paris Olympics has been the stunning beauty of some of the venues. I watched the dressage team final at Versailles on Saturday and the backdrop, with the chateau in the distance, was breathtaking.
Here’s a top five of the most beautiful sporting venues I’ve been to. 1. Newlands cricket ground, Cape Town 2. Sailing events in Sydney Harbour at 2000 Olympics 3. Rowing at Lagoa at the Rio 2016 Olympics 4. Finish line of the Mixed Triathlon on Pont Alexandre III at Paris 2024 Olympics. 5. Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola.
Some of the venues at the Paris Olympics, such as the Chateau de Versailles, are stunning
Getting rid of Gallagher is madness
It is another sign of the dysfunction that has gripped Chelsea since Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali took over the club that one of their most important players has been pushed out of the door.
Amid the chaos of last season, Conor Gallagher was one of the few players at Stamford Bridge to emerge with any credit. He was a team player, selfless and hard-working, the glue that kept the side together and was instrumental in instigating their late-season turnaround.
So, what do Chelsea do? They keep Enzo Fernandez, who is fresh from leading his Argentina teammates in racist chants and has been desperately disappointing since his £105m arrival from Benfica, and they sell Gallagher to Atletico Madrid. How reassuring to see Eghbali and Boehly have not lost their touch.
Chelsea’s decision to allow Conor Gallagher to depart to Atletico Madrid is madness
