Vera Figner and Emma Peel react to the ABC TV coverage of the boxing scandal at the Paris Olympics.
Offsiders – Sunday 4th August
Kelli Underwood, presenter, to guest reporter Jacquelin Magnay in Paris:
The women’s boxing has become embroiled in controversy. Tell us about it.
Jacquelin Magnay:
OK! Have we got half an hour? [Laughs]
But the short version is: the IOC has different rules at these Olympic Games and has allowed what we call intersex boxers, those that have XY chromosomes, which are male chromosomes, and they have been allowed to compete in the women’s category. And the other female boxers are very upset about this. Because they say the XY boxers have a performance advantage.
Obviously with their elevated testosterone they can recover, train harder, but also in the ring punch a lot harder. And we saw that enormous controversy on Thursday where one of the boxers, Imane Khelif, knocked out – or, sorry, she didn’t knock out, she broke the nose of – one of her opponents, Angela Carini, the Italian. And, ah, after 46 seconds. So that was quite shocking at the time, and there’s been a lot of scrutiny of what’s gone on since.
Part of the reason is the IOC is running the competition, not the International Boxing Federation. Because there’s a dispute between the two bodies. So there’s different rules that apply.
The IBF said, ah, ‘We don’t want XY boxers in our competition’ and so they banned these two athletes, Khelif and a Taiwanese boxer as well, called Lin, from their world championships. But under the Olympic rules they’re allowed to compete.
So these poor boxers have been thrown to the wolves, really. Because of officials who are refusing kind of to make a decision and acknowledge what’s gone on.
Vera Figner:
This is good, actually. Brief. Pretty factual.
Emma Peel:
I notice Magnay comes straight out and asserts as fact that Khelif and Lin are intersex, rather than saying that’s suspected, or claimed, or surmised.
Vera Figner:
I’m good with that. I think there’s enough information around to assert that. And the IOC don’t dispute it either, even if they don’t say so explicitly. Look at this correction they issued, for example:
Emma Peel:
But Magnay still refers to Khelif as ‘she’.
Vera Figner:
Yeah, well. That’s unfortunate because it inevitably means that as a listener you form a little picture in your head of a woman, a female. We won’t be doing that, will we, camarade?
Emma Peel:
Bien sûr que non. If there’s a Y, it’s a guy.
Even if it’s a guy with a DSD.
And especially if we’re talking about sport.
Vera Figner:
D’accord.
Emma Peel:
Magnay says Khelif broke Carini’s nose. Is that true?
Vera Figner:
[Googles] Hmm. The media reports from right after the fight pretty consistently use the phrase ‘suspected broken nose’. I can’t find any follow-ups after a medical assessment. Carini says she couldn’t breathe and that her nose bled afterwards. That’s consistent with a broken nose. So maybe Magnay’s right.
Emma Peel:
Magnay got the name of the boxing authority wrong – it’s the International Boxing Association, not Federation.
Vera Figner:
Oh, now you’re being un peu pédante, chérie. It’s a good summary. It even includes something about the women boxers – that they’re upset. And she places the blame for this shemozzle on the IOC, where it belongs. It’s what Amanda Shalala should’ve told us on the News a couple of nights ago.
Emma Peel:
Ça marche.
Offsiders – Sunday 11th August
Presenter Kellie Underwood:
Imane Khelif: She won gold in the last 24 hours so no matter what you think of her, Lauren, I think you just have to look at these pics and you’ve got to feel for her, the fact that she did win the gold medal in the end.
Lauren Wood, panellist:
Yeah, they’re incredible pictures, aren’t they, guys … If nothing else, to be able to shrug off the eyes of the world … and still prevail with the gold medal, they’re – it’s just amazing imagery.
Emma Peel:
’Allo ’Allo! This is very different from last week.
Vera Figner:
Looks like they decided not to let Jacquelin Magnay anywhere near this story again.
Emma Peel:
Could that possibly have had anything to do with her article in The Australian, published two days ago?
Vera Figner:
Oh, that was a ripper, wasn’t it! ‘IOC’s naked gaslighting exposed for world to see’.
Emma Peel [quotes from article]:
‘When boxers who are banned by the International Boxing Association’ – she got the name right this time – ‘because of their genetic XY male profile are winning Olympic medals, the truly dystopian world of Thomas Bach’s organisation’ – that’s the IOC – ‘is brutally and horrifyingly put on display.’
Vera Figner:
She quoted Fiona McAnena of Sex Matters!
Emma Peel:
And she mentioned Caster Semenya and the medallists in the women’s 800 metres at Rio and Sebastian Coe and the eligibility requirements put in place by World Aquatics in 2022 – All the stuff we need to know for any discussion of XY athletes in the women’s sport category.
Vera Figner:
Instead, on Offsiders this morning, we get Kelli and Lauren with this ‘brave-triumph-over-adversity’ spiel. About a man winning gold in the women’s category! Ça me fait bouillir!
Emma Peel:
The ABC’s zealous internal thought police, aka the Pride Network, must have ‘reached out’ to Kelli and offered some ‘guidance’.
Vera Figner:
Ooh là là. Quel dommage, Aunty!
New to Goggleboxing?
Gogglebox was a reality TV show where participants watch and comment on popular television shows. The format originated in Britain and was adapted for Australia.
We’ve adapted the Gogglebox format to allow our faithful correspondents Vera and Emma discuss the ABC’s coverage of Olympic boxing.