Amidst the maelstrom that surrounding Algeria’s Imane Khelif, there also stood Taiwan’s Lin Yu Ting. The 28-year-old was also a target of the International Boxing Association’s disqualifications at last year’s world championships. The International Olympic Committee has strongly defended the participation of these women.
Like Khelif, her name was brought front and center by some saying she is a “man.” Because of that, she faced press scrutiny and received slights from two opponents.
She also said she tuned out the controversy, and that paid off.
Lin ended her Olympics with a unanimous decision in the gold-medal match at 57kg over Poland’s Julia Szeremeta on Saturday, Aug. 10, the penultimate day of the Paris Olympics. Khelif also ended her run at the Paris Olympics with boxing gold.
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The gold-medal fight was the last in what has been a dominating run through this draw. Lin adds an Olympic gold to the world championship she won in 2022.
Szeremeta came into the fight as a speedy, 20-year-old underdog making a cinderella run. That included an upset of Tokyo silver medalist Nesthy Petecio of the Philippines in the semifinals.
Lin was clinical and dominant on the opposite end of the draw with three unanimous decision wins.
Lin used her reach advantage to punish Szeremeta who engaged a hit-and-run strategy from the opening bell. In the final minute of the first round, Lin fired two effective sets of combinations that hit Szeremeta as she ran to seal the round.
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The Polish fighter was forced to be aggressive in the second round. The seasoned Taiwanese boxer continued to find their mark leaving Szeremeta bruised, blooded and out of options forcing a desperate rally in the third round that Lin cooly dispatched.
All five judges confirmed a fourth shutout win for Lin and this Olympics.
It also affirms that both fighters who were sanctioned, if not slandered, by a discredited IBA are both leaving Paris with gold medals.
While she didn’t get as much media attention as Khelif, Lin did get some backlash from opponents in the draw. After her quarterfinal win over Bulgaria’s Svetlana Staneva, the opponent made a gesture forming a n”X” with her fingers. Staneva, according to the Bulgarian Olympic Committee’s Facebook page stated to reporters after the bout, explained the gesture saying, “I have XX-chromosomes, I am a woman!”
The next opponent to fall to Lin — Turkey’s Esra Yildiz Kahraman — repeated the finger gesture but had no further comment on it.
Taiwan swung up for Lin the same way that Algeria stood with Khelif. Taiwanese fans in Paris had their banners flying as Lin clinched the gold. Thousands stayed up into the wee hours of the morning in Taiwan to watch Lin’s fights throughout the Olympic boxing tournament.
Earlier this week the mayor of Lin’s hometown made a public statement supporting one of their own at a watch party with a little trash talk added.
“We should all support Lin Yu Ting,” New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih told Taiwan Focus after her semifinal bout. “She is the daughter of Taiwan and daughter of New Taipei.”
Mayor Hou also implored Lin to “win the gold medal and shut everybody up.”
On Saturday in Paris, she did.
You can follow Lin Yu-ting on Instagram.
