Khelif taking Olympic boxing ring after days of gender outcry

| | Villepinte (France)
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Khelif taking Olympic boxing ring after days of gender outcry

Sunday, 04 August 2024 | AP | Villepinte (France)

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif takes to the ring at the Paris Olympics again Saturday following days of sharp scrutiny and online abuse as misconceptions about her gender have exploded into a larger clash about identity in sports.

Khelif meets Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary, whose boxing association planned to contest the matchup with the International Olympic Committee but still let the fight go ahead, in a quarterfinal in the women's 66-kilogram quarterfinals. If Khelif wins, the veteran amateur will secure the seventh Olympic boxing medal in Algeria's history, its first since 2000 and the nation's first ever in women's boxing.

Khelif won her opening bout Thursday when opponent Angela Carini of Italy tearfully abandoned the fight after just 46 seconds. The unusual ending became a sharp wedge to drive into an already prominent divide over gender identity and regulations in sports, drawing comments from the likes of former U.S. President Donald Trump, “Harry Potter” writer J.K. Rowling and others falsely claiming Khelif was a man or transgender.

At a Paris Games that has championed inclusion and seen other outcry over an opening ceremony performance featuring drag queens, LGBTQ+ groups say the hateful comments could pose dangers to their community and female athletes.

IOC President Thomas Bach on Saturday defended Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan. Khelif and Lin were disqualified in the middle of last year's world championships by the International Boxing Association, the now-banned former governing body of Olympic boxing, after what it claimed were failed eligibility tests for the women's competition.

Both had competed in IBA events for several years without problems, and the Russian-dominated body — which has faced years of clashes with the IOC over judging scandals, leadership decisions and financial issues — has refused to provide any information about the tests, underscoring its lack of transparency in nearly every aspect of its dealings, particularly in recent years.

“Let's be very clear here: We are talking about women's boxing,” Bach said Saturday. “We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised a woman, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women. And this is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.” The IBA, which received the unprecedented punishment of being banned from Olympic participation in 2019 following years of conflict with the IOC, disqualified Khelif last year for what it said were elevated levels of testosterone.

The IBA, which is led by an acquaintance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has not released more details on the tests, calling the process confidential.

“What we see now is that some want to own the definition of who is a woman,” Bach added. “And there I can only invite them to come up with a scientific-based new definition of who is a woman, and how can somebody being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman?

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