A gender row involving two female boxers at the Paris 2024 Olympics was the result of a Russian fake news campaign and had little to do with reality, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said on Saturday.
Bach, who is stepping down in June after 12 years in charge of the biggest job in world sports, said the IOC had needed to fight off many similar campaigns before and after the Paris Games.
The boxing competition at the Paris Games was run by the IOC after it stripped the International Boxing Association (IBA) of recognition last year over its failure to implement reforms on governance and finance.
But the IBA, run by Russian businessman Umar Kremlev with close links to the Kremlin, accused the IOC during Paris of allowing two female athletes, who had been banned by the IBA following a chromosome test a year earlier, to compete.
Lots of people had pointed out the issues with the IBA and who they were run by while this was happening.
The fact that it takes organizations like the IOC this fucking long to research and prove it is a fucking joke.
Institutions simply do not move as fast as misinformation.
It doesn’t help that the information is readily available and easily provable yet dinosaur institutions think they need to spend nine fucking months “investigating” it before they can make a fucking statement.