As the 2026 Winter Games open in Italy, high drama has made news that few saw coming. Norway is being blamed for igniting a “crotch-enlarging” scandal that landed like a seismic blast days before the opening ceremonies. The scandal is so serious that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had to call an emergency meeting to set new rules.
As reported, Norway’s ski jumping team had been caught in a cheating scheme involving competition suits that added material to men’s crotches. This is no production error. It’s a low-tech design tactic that uses the physics of flight to give athletes a competitive edge. More material in the suit improves lift so jumpers can sail farther through the air. No better place to add the enhancement than an inconspicuous area between the legs.
Daily Mail reports the IOC rule change to avert the crisis “will put tamper-proof microchips in the suits of each athlete and use 3D scanning technology to measure the space between their legs.”
The irony. The IOC is going all out to examine the crotches of men so they won’t cheat in ski jumping, but it wouldn’t touch a literal crotch scandal in 2024 that they knew was coming when Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was allowed to compete and win gold in the women’s welterweight division.
Olympic men might be manipulating their body suits, but let’s be honest, the real crotch scandal of the century has been the IOC’s platforming of males in the women’s category. We’re still waiting for that policy change that was promised to women, which the IOC has failed to announce, adding confusion to claims of the first trans athlete participating in the Winter Olympics.
At the last Olympics in Paris, the IOC refused to verify the sex of Khelif using a straightforward genetic test, the same kind of intervention that other boxing federations had used that exposed Khelif as male. Khelif just admitted to having XY chromosomes. A feckless IOC wouldn’t be bothered – it stated Khelif’s Algerian passport was the proof of sex (of course, stating female) and proceeded smugly through the games, crowning Khelif with gold and ignoring the pleas of the female competitors Khelif was beating up.
Since World Boxing became the new international governing body and instituted a robust sex eligibility and verification policy to ensure the integrity of the women’s boxing category, Khelif has been in retreat, refusing to take a sex-verification test. He’s just emerged, claiming intent to seek a comeback with “reduced testosterone levels.”
All the more reason the IOC must get serious now about sex verification in the women’s category. Female athletes are not female because of a testosterone level. Sex is, and must be, an objective category no different than weight class or age.
In December, Kirsty Coventry’s IOC claimed it would be setting new rules early this year to ensure women athletes are not competing against men. Where are those rules?
Khelif’s latest publicity stunt only resurrects the controversy of the 2024 Games and the continued threat for the future. The IOC has acted fast to avert a crotch scandal for Milan Cortina in 2026; it must be matched with fast and decisive action to protect the female category once and for all. No more double standards or foot-dragging, treating women’s sports as a stepchild.
With the United States hosting the games in 2028, the heat is too intense to ignore. Scrutiny over activism and junk science has exposed the IOC’s bad decision-making and indefensible policies, claiming that competitive advantage is nothing more than a testosterone level; biology be damned. But this hasn’t moved the IOC to any final action – yet.
Doreen Denny is Senior Advisor for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization. On X: @CWforA
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