Lin Yu-ting (; born 13 December 1995) is a Taiwanese amateur boxer. She has won two gold medals at the IBA World Boxing Championships, in addition to two gold medals at the Asian Games and one at the Asian Amateur Boxing Championships. She competed for Taiwan at the 2024 Summer Olympics where she defeated Julia Szeremeta of Poland in the final of the women's 57 kg category (featherweight). Lin is the first Taiwanese boxer to win an Olympic gold medal.
Background Lin has three siblings; as a child, she and her older brother watched the anime Hajime no Ippo, which inspired her to consider boxing. Lin also learned boxing in an effort to protect her mother from domestic abuse. She began training in her first year of junior high school and was, by her second year, showing talent in the boxing ring and winning boxing competitions in Taiwan.
Lin received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan. She is currently a doctoral student at the Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Fu Jen Catholic University. Both universities are famous for their sports disciplines.輔仁大學全球資訊網 > 賀！本校商博所林郁婷同學 勇奪2023杭州亞運女子拳擊57公斤級 金牌
Career Lin won a gold medal at the 2018 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships as a bantamweight, followed by a medal at the 2019 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships. She competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but did not win a medal.
Lin was disqualified from the 2023 Women's World Boxing Championships organised by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA) after failing unspecified gender eligibility tests, along with Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. She was stripped of a bronze medal, which was instead awarded to Bulgaria's Svetlana Staneva. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its Paris Boxing Unit criticized the disqualification as "sudden and arbitrary" and taken "without any due process". The Washington Post stated, "It remains unclear what standards Khelif and Lin Yu Ting failed [in 2023] to lead to the disqualifications." The IBA did not reveal the testing methodology, stating the "specifics remain confidential". The IBA's Olympic status was revoked in June 2023, due to governance issues and perceived judging and refereeing corruption.
In 2023, she successfully competed at the Hangzhou Asian Games, where the Medical Committee confirmed her eligibility. Lin won Taiwan's first gold medal in boxing at the event, fighting in the 57 kg category.
2024 Summer Olympics
The boxing events in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics were managed by the IOC's Paris 2024 Boxing Unit. IOC President Thomas Bach defended the participation of Khelif and Lin: "There was never any doubt about them being a woman". Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te and former President Tsai Ing-wen also both expressed support for Lin in August 2024.
Lin won the gold medal after defeating Julia Szeremeta of Poland in the final of the women's 57 kg category (featherweight). With this win, Lin became the first Taiwanese boxer to win an Olympic gold medal.
During the International Boxing Association (IBA) press conference in Paris on 5 August 2024, the position of the organization and its president Umar Kremlev regarding the nature of the conducted tests underwent changes and became contradictory. Initially, the IBA claimed that gender tests were conducted, but at the conference, Secretary General Chris Roberts spoke of "chromosome tests", while Kremlev asserted that the tests were aimed at determining testosterone levels in athletes. The situation was exacerbated by Kremlev's harsh statements; he repeatedly criticized IOC President Thomas Bach, declared his intention to initiate legal proceedings against him and expressed dissatisfaction with the Olympic Games opening ceremony, calling it "humiliating". The IBA claimed to have used laboratories accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for testing, but WADA denied involvement in gender verification, stating it deals solely with anti-doping matters.
Controversy Continues After the 2024 Olympics; Refusal to Test and Suspension from WB Events However, after the 2024 Paris Olympics ended and the newly established World Boxing (WB) took over from the International Boxing Association in organizing top-level world boxing events and collaborating with the Olympics, the controversy surrounding Lin Yu-ting’s gender did not subside.
After World Boxing assumed control of world boxing competitions, Lin Yu-ting initially refused to undergo the PCR testing uniformly arranged by World Boxing for other female athletes, insisting instead on submitting her own test results to the WB for eligibility. World Boxing initially rejected this approach, insisting that Lin follow the federation’s unified chromosome testing procedures. It also refused to negotiate alternative arrangements with the government of the Republic of China or to make any special exceptions for her. After prolonged unsuccessful attempts to negotiate special treatment with World Boxing, Lin first announced on the day of the competition in June 2025—while the Taiwanese boxing team had already arrived in Kazakhstan to prepare for the WB Cup—that she would not participate because World Boxing’s gender testing methods remained unclear. Three months later, in September 2025, she again announced her withdrawal from the World Boxing Championships held in Liverpool, England, claiming that World Boxing lacked experience, that its procedures were incomplete, and that it could not guarantee the confidentiality of athletes’ test results. She stated that he would refuse to participate in any events organized by World Boxing until the situation improved. As a result, after the 2024 Olympics, Lin Yu-ting did not compete in any World Boxing events for a total of one and a half years.
WB SRY-Positive Appeal, "Deemed to be Female", and Return to Women's Boxing In March 2026, World Boxing softened its position and proposed a solution allowing Lin to compete in the female category. It stated that it was willing to accept a
ppeals for review from all athletes who had previously tested positive for the SRY gene via PCR testing and raised concerns about competitive fairness. If the SRY gene test indicate
d that the athlete was a biologically male with XY chromosomes, but the degree of unfair advantage was within an acceptable range, the athlete could still compete in the female category. Lin had to use this rule to enter this appeal process, which would essentially publicly confirm she tested SRY-positive, but once in
this pathway, a resolution became possible. After Lin filed the appeal, World Boxing ultimately decided to clear her, granting her eligibility to compete in the female category, stating that its medical committee had "considered and evaluated the medical documentation presented and determined that the boxer was 'deemed to be female' and eligible to compete in the female category". However, although Lin used the appeal process exclusively reserved for SRY-positive athletes, WB never specifically admitted that Lin tested SRY-positive, and the specific medical rationale used by WB to determine that she could compete in the female category has not been made public. The Chinese Taipei Boxing Association described the decision as a "tremendous relief" for Lin, and announced her intention to compete at the impending Asian Boxing Championships, held in Mongolia between 29 March and 10 April.
Uncertainties Regarding Future at the 2028 Olympics and Beyond Under the New IOC Rules Meanwhile, under pressure and amid ongoing controversy from various sides, the International Olympic Committee decided in March 2026 to change its previous “respect and inclusion” policy. Starting from the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, it will rigorously implement scientific testing and prohibit “transgender women” from competing in women’s events. All athletes participating in the women’s category will be required to undergo genetic testing to confirm that the SRY gene is negative in order to be eligible. The previous IOC rule—which did not require chromosome testing and only required testosterone levels to be maintained below a certain standard for a period of time while respecting each country’s self-identification of athletes’ gender—will be abolished from the next Olympics onward, but it will not be applied retroactively.
Kirsty Coventry, the first female President of the International Olympic Committee who took office in March 2025, explained the IOC’s latest position:
“The scientific evidence is very clear. Male chromosomes give performance advantages in sports that rely on strength, power or endurance. At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat.”
Under the new rules, the IOC will conduct chromosome screening only once, with the result valid for life. However, any athlete who has ever tested positive for the SRY gene will, in principle, not meet the standards for the women’s category, unless specifically identified as having the extremely rare Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS)—a condition in which the individual is biologically male with genitalia resembling those of a female, but aside from height and limb length approaching male averages, other advantages such as muscle strength and explosive power are not significant.
Given that Lin Yu-ting has already tested positive for the SRY gene as indicated in her participation in the WB SRY-positive appeal process, while the IOC’s new regulations strictly require that athletes who test positive for the SRY gene are in principle not allowed to compete in the women’s category, her eligibility for the women’s category at the 2028 Olympics remains uncertain. There is also a view that the International Olympic Committee may directly respect the determination of World Boxing. If World Boxing considers that although Lin Yu-ting is an athlete with a positive SRY gene test result, the degree of unfair advantage is within an acceptable range, then she may still be allowed to compete in the women’s events at the Olympics.
In any case, because the IOC’s new rules are not applied retroactively, even if Lin Yu-ting has tested positive for the SRY gene and may be unable to compete in the women’s category at the Los Angeles Olympics and beyond, this will not affect the Olympic gold medal she already won in Paris or his previous competition results.
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