PARIS — Lin Yu-ting captured featherweight gold on Saturday, defeating Poland’s Julia Szeremeta and shaking off greater than per week of specious allegations that she shouldn’t be preventing ladies.
Lin gained by unanimous resolution at Roland-Garros stadium, with the 5 judges scoring it 10-9 in all three rounds for the fighter representing Chinese language Taipei.
The gold medalist is listed at 5-foot-9 and her Polish opponent at 5-foot-5, however the disparity gave the impression to be better in actual life, with Lin punching downhill and barely being threatened.
The fighter mentioned the gender controversy not often entered her thoughts as she focused on preparation.
“As a elite athlete through the competitors it’s vital to close myself off from social media and to focus,” she told reporters after the bout. “A number of the noises and among the information articles, in fact I heard among the data by my coach however I didn’t pay an excessive amount of thoughts to it.”
Lin’s coach, Tseng Tzu-chiang, went on a sarcastic assault on J.Ok. Rowling and thanked the “Harry Potter” writer for shining a light on Taiwan and his fighter.
Rowling has, for years, drawn hearth for her feedback demeaning the trans community. And in current days, Rowling has taken to social media to voice her opposition to Lin and Algerian welterweight Imane Khelif preventing in Paris.
“I’m very grateful to J.Ok. Rowling: Thanks on your groundless remarks, which have introduced global attention to Taiwan,” Tseng mentioned. “She really is a magical author, so we made our personal magic.”
Followers in Taiwan have rallied to their boxer’s aspect and the Chinese language Taipei Olympic Committee hailed her success.
“Thanks Yu, we’ll at all times be your strongest backers,” the physique mentioned.
In social media postings after Saturday’s bout, the Polish Olympic Committee celebrated Szeremeta’s silver medal and didn’t seem to take the path of Turkish and Bulgarian fighters, who mocked Lin when the boxer from Taiwan beat them.
Lin and welterweight gold medalist Khelif have each handled a firestorm of questions from opponents wrongly questioning their gender since they entered Olympic competitors.
Khelif and Lin have competed for years in ladies’s occasions, together with on the Tokyo Olympics, and there’s no indication that they determine as transgender or intersex, the latter referring to individuals born with intercourse traits that don’t match strictly into the male-female gender binary.
Questions surrounding their gender stemmed from a choice by the Russian-led Worldwide Boxing Affiliation to disqualify them ultimately yr’s Girls’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi. The IBA eliminated these two fighters from a contest on the time, saying that they had assessments that questioned their gender eligibility.
The IBA mentioned it had carried out assessments in 2022 and 2023 that raised doubts in regards to the boxers’ gender due to their chromosomes.
The IBA has not launched particulars of the testing. IOC spokesperson Mark Adams referred to as these eligibility assessments “flawed” and “not official” at a information convention Sunday.
The Taiwanese Ministry of Overseas Affairs described Lin’s win on Instagram as “such an emotional win!” while representing Taiwan and “overcoming challenges in & exterior the ring…with exceptional grace & resilience.”
David Ok. Li reported from Paris and Rima Abdelkader from Stamford, Connecticut.
Rima Abdelkader is a senior reporter for Social Newsgathering at NBC Information in New York.
