All candidates running for IOC president were asked about transgender athletes, and all affirmed their commitment to preserving women's sport. Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr is probably the one who is most precise about the schedule he wants to put in place. The Spaniard confided to Reuters that he wanted a solution to be found before the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games, which will open on February 6, 2026. " We should do our best for a decision to be made before the Milan-Cortina Games. I think it is almost obligatory to try. The deadline is very short, but the calendar is there", he explains.
The sixty-year-old hopes above all to avoid controversies similar to those surrounding female boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting in Paris 2024. These Games "among the most successful in history, if not the most successful", have thus been "tarnished by this problem", the leader laments. In 2021, the IOC ordered international federations to develop their own rules for the participation of transgender athletes. "A good initiative, but it was not enough, judge Samaranch. Paris has demonstrated that the social alarm on this issue is still there, and that there is a common understanding… so that the IOC, as the leader of the world of sport, is also the leader on this issue.”
