Olympic boxing: Lin Yu-ting secures place in gold-medal bout

Chinese boxer Lin Yu-ting secured a spot in Saturday’s Olympic women’s heavyweight last amid the continued controversy over her enrollment.

Lin and Imane Khelif are competing in Paris despite the International Boxing Association ( IBA ) ruling them out of the World Championships last year due to their alleged failure to meet gender eligibility requirements.

After Khelif secured her position in the welterweight last on Tuesday, 28-year-old Lin reached her own gold-medal fit with another complete, unanimous decision triumph as she overcame Esra Yildiz Kahraman.

As she left the band, the 27-year-old from Turkey made the similar’ X ‘ sign with two hands as Lin’s past opposition, Svetlana Staneva.

Kahraman turned round to present the symbol to all of the crowd’s areas while first holding the ropes available for Lin, then turned around and made the sign with two of her fingers.

Staneva’s ‘ X’ was officially said to have symbolised adult XX chromosomes.

Following the battle, Kahraman did not contact BBC Sport. When the press inquired about the gesture’s significance, one of her crew responded,” no post.”

Lin did meet 20-year-old Pole Julia Atena Szeremeta, who beat Tokyo gold medallist Nesthy Petecio of the Philippines, in the biggest episode of her job on Saturday.

Lin told BBC Sport,” I’m feeling really excited and one move closer to my ultimate goal.”

Lin, who lost to Petecio in the last 16 of the Tokyo Games, has two gold medals at the World Championships but has not contested an Olympic last.

At last week’s World Championships, Lin reached the semi-finals- therefore securing a bronze award- but was disqualified by the IBA.

The IBA said Lin had “failed to fulfill the eligibility requirements for participating in the women’s competition, because set and laid out” in its rules.

But Lin and Algerian Khelif, who was disqualified from the same tournament, have been allowed to compete at the Olympics, which is run by the International Olympic Committee ( IOC).

The IOC, which suspended the IBA in 2019 because of concerns over its finances, management, morality, refereeing and judging, has powerfully backed Lin and Khelif, with chairman Thomas Bach saying there was “never any question” they are people.

A disorganized news conference on Monday helped little with the confusion surrounding the IBA’s position as key figures gave contradictory explanations of why the couple were banned, and the organization claimed competitors were ready for the women’s section if their passports indicated they were female.

On Friday at 21:51 BST, Khelif squares Liu Yang of China for silver. Lin’s episode may start the last day of fighting at the Paris Olympics at 20: 30 on Saturday.