The duty of care has been thrown out the window
Sharron Davies raised fears of a woman Olympian being killed as she joined fairness for sport campaigners in demanding sex tests for all competitors. The former silver-medallist swimmer said the “insane” gender row engulfing boxing at these Games amounts to “genuine neglect” by the IOC.
Genuine, knowing, calculated, brutal, murderous neglect. A man’s feelings somehow matter more than a woman’s physical safety.
Davies and Fiona McAnena, of the group Sex Matters, appealed for sport not to get sidetracked by doubts over the credibility of the International Boxing Association, which carried out gender eligibility tests on Khelif and Lin in 2022 and 2023.
“In boxing, it is insane to put a male in a ring with a female and for the IOC to say the only thing that’s important to them is what is on a passport is genuine neglect,” Davies told a press conference on Thursday. “The duty of care has been thrown out the window, and my head wants to explode… We’re literally on the cusp of a female athlete potentially being killed if we’re not careful. It really is that bad.”
Which the officials must realize. I’ll never understand why it doesn’t stop them.
Reflecting on the saga which has tarnished the Games, McAnena added: “This failure can be laid at the door of the IOC, and the IOC could solve it too. It’s the IOC that set up the Paris boxing unit, and the IOC that is claiming there is no scientific consensus on how to determine who is a woman. The same IOC insists these two boxers are women. By refusing to allow or recognise sex screening, it is the IOC that has invited public scrutiny of Khelif and Lin.”
That’s a point. “We don’t know how to determine who is a woman and these two men are definitely women.”
The campaigners claim the IOC is “wrong when it says no one wants to return to sex testing”. Surveys have shown consistently that the vast majority of female athletes want sex screening. At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, 82 per cent of those surveyed were in favour, they point out.
“There is no confusion in this,” said Davies. “It’s very straightforward. Biological females should be protected to have their own classification of sport. That’s 51 per cent of this world’s population… And at the moment, they’ve been told they just don’t matter, and it’s heartbreaking.”
The IOC has rejected such criticism, insisting Khelif and Lin are women, despite their disqualifications from IBA events last year.
What are we to conclude? That women just don’t matter, and never will.
A tactic straight out of the TRA playbook; ignore the messages and attack the messengers. ‘Don’t listen to her, she had Nazis at the rally…don’t listen to her, she follows a bad person on Twitter….ignore her, she writes for a right-wing newspaper…’.
Maybe I’m wrong in thinking this, but isn’t the well understood fact that the IOC is corrupt as a week old corpse in a bog a significant factor that isn’t being discussed?
BKiSA, that’s because it’s on the right side, so its corruption is deemed irrelevant because reasons.
No, other way around. It’s the
IOCIBA that ratted out the male boxers. Yes, word is it’s corrupt and in Moscow’s pocket. Nevertheless it’s not wrong to say that men should not be in women’s boxing.The IOC is the International Olympic Committee. It was the IBA that ratted out the boxers.
Derp. I knew that. Meant to say it and crossed wires.
They’re both as corrupt as hell as I’ve understood it… It’s just that in the IBA’s case doubling down doesn’t make much sense if it isn’t true.
Is it too late to say that my comment at #3 was intended to be sarcasm? The IOC’s corruption is not under scrutiny because when you’re on Team Identity you can do no wrong.
Not too late but I think not needed. I knew it was sarcasm.