Donald Trump: What impact could the new US president’s return have on sport?

Trump has vowed to ban all transgender women from female competition in sports, and has regularly focused on the issue during his election campaign, including in TV adverts that criticised transgender athletes and which were shown during sports broadcasts.

He has previously condemned trans-inclusive teams, arguing it threatens women’s sports.

Trump’s rhetoric could please those concerned about the impact of transgender inclusion on fairness and safety in female competition. But with the 2028 Games set to take place in Los Angeles, others fear it could also put him at loggerheads with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has allowed individual sports to choose their own gender eligibility policies.

Trump has also mocked Olympic women’s boxing champion Imane Khelif, who won gold at Paris 2024 a year after being disqualified from the World Championships for reportedly failing gender eligibility tests.

In Republican party campaign videos in the days before the US election, Trump questioned the fighter’s biological sex, using it as an example of how he claimed “speaking the truth” had become “hate speech” under Joe Biden’s government.

Algerian Khelif and her Olympic association have always said she was born a woman and is a woman.

The IOC has condemned the “abuse” Khelif has received, blaming “prejudices and culture wars”, saying the fighter is eligible to fight in women’s boxing.

It will also be interesting to see if plans for the Olympics are affected if there is a repeat of the friction seen in the past between Trump and some Democrat politicians who hold powerful positions in California.

There could also be tension with the Paralympic community before LA 2028, with Trump having previously denied accusations he mocked a disabled reporter with a congenital joint condition at a rally in 2015. Three years later he was also rebuked by the International Paralympic Committee for saying the Pyeongchang Paralympics was “hard to watch”.