Did Irish professional boxer Kellie Harrington say she would refuse to compete against "biological males" at the Paris 2024 Olympics? No, that's not true: The Olympic Federation of Ireland told Lead Stories on August 2, 2024, that Harrington "does not recollect a conversation about this," and that there is no record of Harrington making any such statement. Lead Stories also could find no public evidence for the remark.
The claim appeared in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, platform (archived here) on July 31, 2024. Above an image of Kellie Harrington, the caption opened:
BREAKING: Irish boxer Kellie Harrington, an Olympic Gold Medalist in 2021, has said she will REFUSE to compete against any boxers who are biological males at this Olympics.
Good for her!👏👏👏
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thur Aug 1 17:16:29 2024 UTC)
In response to a query from Lead Stories, Heather Boyle, head of Communications, PR and Athletes' Commission at The Olympic Federation of Ireland confirmed via email on August 2, 2024, that that there was no basis for the claim:
We have no record or evidence of this statement and Kellie does not recollect a conversation about this.
It would have been a significant news event if Harrington, who won gold in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, stated that she refused to compete in the Olympics with "biological males" -- an implied reference to her competitors in the 2024 Paris Olympics' women's 60kg boxing. Using keywords from the claim, Lead Stories did a search on Google News, visible here (archived here), but found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning the Paris 2024 Olympics can be read here.
