Taiwan cheers boxer who won Olympic gold after gender row

When the referee raised Lin Yu-ting’s hand at the Paris 2024’s women’s 57kg final, history was made. She had won Taiwan its first ever Olympic gold medal in boxing.

Calling Lin a “daughter of Taiwan,” Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te was among millions of people celebrating her victory, saying she had made Taiwan proud.

“With admirable focus and discipline, she has overcome misinformation and cyberbullying, turning adversity into victory,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Until several weeks ago, the 28-year-old’s name had been little known to people outside of Taiwan – but the Games have thrust Lin into the spotlight, after she and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif became the centre of a gender eligibility row that engulfed the 2024 Olympics.

Lin and Khelif were allowed to compete in Paris despite being disqualified from last year’s World Championships after reportedly failing unspecified gender eligibility tests. IOC judges have justified the decision to include them saying the testing conducted on them by the sport’s now-banned governing body, the International Boxing Association, was “impossibly flawed” and that Lin and Khelif were “born and raised as women”.

However, the decision to include them has proved to be divisive and controversial and the two athletes have been subject to an outpouring of online abuse and criticism.

Some of their fellow competitors were among those criticising their participation, while high profile figures like ex-US President Donald Trump and English author JK Rowling took to social media to decry the decision to let them compete in the women’s categories.

But Taiwanese social media users have been firmly supportive of Lin throughout her Olympic campaign, celebrating her victories and vociferously coming to her defence.

President Lai has previously said that he had asked his administration to pursue legal actions over the “malicious attacks and bullying” Lin had suffered.

Online, others echoed his view, saying: “The daughter of Taiwan is protected by the people of Taiwan.”

On Saturday, hundreds of people gathered in Lin’s hometown of New Taipei City to watch the live broadcast of Lin’s final, along with her mother Liao Shiu-chen.

Speaking to the BBC, Mrs Liao said she was “grateful” for all the support given to Lin, saying: “She really held on. She did it.”

She said she wanted to tell Lin: “Mama loves you. I love my daughter.”

“We are ecstatic!”, 41-year-old Ms Yang, who watched the game with her son told the BBC.

“She has had such a hard journey. I was very angry to see her bullied by the whole world. This is a historic moment.”

Among those watching was the head of PE in Lin’s old secondary school. Ange Cha said her win would inspire young aspiring boxers.

“It gives them a goal to pursue and a role model to look up to.”

The gender eligibility row has been one of the most controversial stories from the 2024 Games, with Lin saying she had “shut herself off” from social media in a bid to avoid it.

Her cousin and previous sparring partner, Hsu Hao-xiang, earlier told the BBC that the controversy was “just a bunch of nonsense”.

“Just think about how many competitions she had participated in all these years [without problems].”

He described Lin as a “warm and thoughtful” person outside the rings, saying: “She could pick up [on] things that we boys would not notice. She would always want to do more for her mom and the family – she carries a lot by herself.”

An old resurfaced interview where Lin says she started boxing to “protect my mum”, who was a victim of domestic violence, has also had a lot of resonance in Taiwan.

“This makes me want to cry. She has worked so hard until now, only to face this embarrassing international bullying,” read a comment under the clip.

“We will protect you as you protect your mom. You are the best Taiwanese girl,” a top comment under her most recent Instagram posts reads.

Lin’s victory means she has completed a golden “grand slam” – she previously won two World Championship gold medals in 2018 and 2022 and clinched Taiwan’s first gold medal in the 2022 Asian Games.

But her path to Gold has not been straightforward. In 2016, she failed to secure a ticket to the Rio Olympics after failing at the qualification games. In 2021, she was favoured to win a gold but was defeated in the first round of the Tokyo Olympics.

These defeats pushed Lin to go further, said Mr Hsu.

“She didn’t listen to them, strode over them, and kept breaking through,” he said.

Mr Hsu added that the people’s support made Lin “fearless”, adding that it was “really moving to see so many people cheering for my cousin, and so many places live-streaming her games simultaneously”.

And although the 2024 Olympics has now ended, the conversation of gender eligibility in sports is one that is likely to continue.

IOC President Thomas Bach had left the door open to revisiting the organisation’s own eligibility rules on Friday.

“If someone is presenting us a scientifically solid system how to identify men and women, we are the first ones to do it,” he said, stating that the IOC would not organise boxing in the upcoming 2028 Games without a reliable partner.