IOC chief reveals plans for transgender policy change and pledges to 'protect the female category' - as Imane Khelif controversy rumbles on

The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suggested a new transgender policy will be implemented to 'protect the female category'. 

Kirsty Coventry revealed that a working group was being set up to determine a new policy amid raging controversy over transgender boxers taking part in last year's Olympics.

Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting were at the centre of a bitter storm during last year's Games after they claimed gold medals despite allegations they were biologically male.

The IOC has been strongly criticised for failing to have a clear policy on transgender and DSD (Differences of Sexual Development) athletes. 

The organisation has previously left individual bodies in charge of regulations rather than taking a universal approach. 

Both Khelif and Yu-ting had been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships run by the International Boxing Association (IBA), the former governing body for the sport. 

World Boxing, who are now the governing body for the sport, announced last month that it will introduce mandatory sex testing for male and female boxers who want to take part in competitions, naming Khelif as a fighter who would need to undergo testing before taking part in this month's Eindhoven Box Cup.   

Coventry is the first woman to hold the IOC presidency and said its members want to develop a policy 'to come up with cohesion'.

At her first news conference as president, the 41-year-old said: 'There was a lot of discussion and there was overwhelming support — not just among the members present but those of us who were able to share with us before they left — that we should protect the female category.

'And with that we are setting up a working group made up of experts and international federations. It was agreed by the members that the IOC should take a leading role in this.

'And that we should be the ones to bring together the experts and the international federations and ensure that we find consensus. We understand that there will be differences depending on the sports. But it was fully agreed that as members, and as the IOC, we should make the effort to place emphasis on protection of the female category and that we should ensure that this is done in consensus with all the stakeholders.

'We have to do that to ensure fairness. And we have to do it with scientific approach. And with the inclusion of the international federations who have done a lot of work in that area. So we have to bring in the experts, that will take a little bit of time, and the international federations so that we have full buy-in and cohesion on this specific topic.'

In an exclusive interview with Mail Sport this week, IBA president Umar Kremlev called on the IOC to strip Khelif of her gold medal.

But the Zimbabwean IOC chief said there is no desire to revisit the fiery row which overshadowed the boxing at the Paris Olympics. 

'We are not going to be doing anything retrospectively,' she said. 'We are going to be looking forward. And again, from the members that were here, it was what are we learning from the past and how are we going to leverage that and move that forward to the future and how are we going to strengthen the movement as we move into the future.'