In this piece, we go with the comments of IBA's president Umar Kremlev and the position of IBA regarding this topic. The comments of Boris van der Vorst, president of World Boxing, will be available on our website soon.

After asking for comments from IBA we received information that yesterday, on 31 July, posted a video with Umar Kremlev's declarations regarding the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony as an event where "the traditional values and culture of every nation should be respected but both were tarnished on this event". 

He continues "That's why I support the World Friendship Games and I'm sure it would be the best sports event". In the video the president of IBA invites athletes to participate in the World Friendship Games, claiming there will prevail respect for any nation, culture and family values.

In the same video, Umar Kremlev mentions two athletes who have been banned by the IBA from international competitions.

The IBA's statement says "On 24 March 2023, IBA disqualified athletes Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships New Delhi 2023. This disqualification was a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA Regulations. This decision, made after a meticulous review, was extremely important and necessary to uphold the level of fairness and utmost integrity of the competition."

According to the information received from IBA's official communication channels, the video of Kremlev was deleted yesterday from Instagram "due to a ban claimed by the IOC" and now is only available on the official telegram channel of IBA's president.

Today, on 1 August 2024, there has been published a video, where Umar Kremlev expresses his complete disappointment with the decision of the IOC to allow the 2 boxers with high levels of testosterone to compete in the Olympics and also his support for all women athletes.

"We will defend the athletes, me personally as president of IBA and the association itself will defend the athletes. We will not stand by and allow women's boxing to be destroyed. There will be no athletes with high levels of testosterone competing in women's boxing championships. We will defend women boxers wherever they compete including the Olympics. IBA is the home of all the boxers while the current IOC administration falls short of the required standards and should be substituted", concluded Kremlev in his comments to insidethegames.biz.