The French federation has accused World Boxing of a “betrayal” after the country’s women’s team were barred from entry to the World Championships in Liverpool because gender test results were not received on time.
The testing has become mandatory for entry to the female category after the sport was rocked by the controversy surrounding Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting at last summer’s Olympics.
Federation president Dominique Nato told L’Equipe that his organisation had been unable to conduct the tests in France because such tests for sporting reasons were prohibited.
He said he had spoken to World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst about taking the tests on arrival in Liverpool, and said Van der Vorst recommended a laboratory.
L’équipe de France féminine de boxe injustement privée de championnats du monde !
— FFBoxe (@FF_Boxe) September 3, 2025
La FFBoxe réagit : lire le communiqué ➡️ https://t.co/pLtfIxFqWW pic.twitter.com/biYejTG7Gd
The tests were taken on Monday, Nato said, but he was informed by the team technical director on Wednesday evening that the team were being excluded because the results had not arrived.
“I took this as a betrayal and I called Boris van der Vorst, I told him he was taking away the girls’ dreams, that it wasn’t normal,” L’Equipe reported Nato as saying.
“He told me he was sorry for us, but that he couldn’t do anything, that it was the decision of World Boxing’s lawyers.”
World Boxing said in a statement that responsibility for conducting the tests has always rested with the national federations.
“It is very disappointing for the boxers that some national federations have not been able to complete this process in time which means that some athletes have not made it through the sports entry process for the World Boxing Championships,” the governing body said.
It is understood World Boxing communicated with federations as recently as August 21 regarding the policy, pointing out that test results could take 48 hours to come through and that tests completed later than September 1 could jeopardise the eligibility of athletes or teams.
The governing body is understood to have worked with a number of federations over the last three weeks to facilitate testing in the UK, and a number of athletes who have gone through that process have been cleared to compete.
However, it is understood athletes from other countries have also been unable to compete for the same reason as the French boxers.
Khelif is separately challenging World Boxing’s eligibility rules at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Along with Taiwanese fighter Lin, Khelif was cleared to compete by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at last summer’s Olympic Games in Paris despite being disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for allegedly failing gender eligibility tests.
That 2023 competition was organised by the International Boxing Association, which has since been replaced by World Boxing as the sport’s IOC-recognised global federation.
Khelif has always maintained she was born a woman, lived as a woman and competed as a woman.
