Algerian Olympic champion boxer Imane Khelif, who is at the center of a row over gender eligibility, will not compete in this week’s tournament in The Netherlands, organizers said Thursday.

Dirk Renders, spokesman for the Eindhoven Box Cup, confirmed to AFP the boxer would not be taking part, adding: “The decision of her exclusion is up to World Boxing.”

World Boxing has introduced mandatory gender testing for competitors over 18 and had informed the Algerian federation Khelif would have to undergo the test to compete in Eindhoven this week.

Under the new policy, all athletes in World Boxing-sanctioned competitions need to take a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test, to determine what sex they were at birth.

The PCR test, conducted via a nasal or mouth swab, detects specific genetic material — in this case the SRY gene — that reveals the presence of the Y chromosome, an indicator of biological gender.

The controversy around Khelif, who won Gold in the women’s welterweight class in Paris, was one of the stories of the Games.

The scandal erupted when Khelif defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in 46 seconds in her opening bout, the Italian reduced to tears after suffering a badly hurt nose.

Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, then found themselves at the centre of a gender row that attracted comments from US President Donald Trump and “Harry Potter” author J.K.Rowling.

Both boxers had been disqualified from the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) 2023 world championships after the organisation said they had failed gender eligibility tests.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) later stripped the IBA of its right to organise the boxing in Paris over financial, governance, and ethical concerns.

The IOC allowed them both to compete in Paris saying they had been victims of “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA.”

“The two female athletes mentioned by the IBA are not transgender athletes,” the IOC said in a statement to AFP in February.

“They were born as women, were raised as women, and have competed in the women’s category for their entire boxing careers,” the IOC said.

World Boxing will organize the boxing competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after the IOC granted it provisional recognition.