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‘I have never felt a punch like this’: The 46 seconds that rocked the Olympics
By Michael Chammas
After 46 seconds, two blows to the head and a busted nose, Italian Angela Carini left the ring as the most talked-about athlete on the planet after withdrawing from her bout with a fighter who had previously failed gender eligibility tests.
Carini’s bout against Algeria’s Imane Khelif had attracted the attention of the world’s media, due to the North African being allowed to compete in Paris despite having been disqualified from the world championship in New Delhi in 2023 for failing a gender eligibility test.
As a result, the press box at North Paris Arena, which had been nearly empty just 24 hours before, was packed to the rafters with reporters eager to see how the controversial bout would play out.
The result was the quickest stoppage of the Games so far, triggering a furore over gender-eligibility rules that will be spoken long after the flame burns out in Paris.
After 37 ticks of the clock, Carini raised her glove to pause the bout so that her corner could adjust her headgear, which had been dislodged by a fierce right-hand blow from Khelif.
Then, just nine seconds later, Carini repeatedly yelled to her corner, “Non e giusto, non e giusto” (“It’s not fair, it’s not fair”). Her Olympics was over. “I’ve never felt a punch like this,” she would later say.
Angela Carini lost to Imane Khelif.Credit: Eddie Jim
Then she threw her headgear out of the ring and sank to her knees in tears as the announcement of Khelif’s victory due to abandonment in the women’s 66-kilogram class was relayed through the stadium’s speakers.
Carini subsequently refused to shake her opponent’s hand. The fight was over, but the war was only just starting.
The Italian later said she had withdrawn because she “couldn’t breathe” and “had to safeguard my life”, a statement that reflected the fears raised on Wednesday by Australian boxing captain Caitlin Parker that the health of her fellow boxers was being put at risk in bouts against previously disqualified athletes.
In the aftermath of the fight, the first to talk publicly was the Italian head coach, Emanuele Renzini, who answered questions from the media scrum of almost 200, mostly in Italian, although he also responded to a few in English.
Carini drops to the floor in disappointment as Khelif stands over her.Credit: AP
He said Carini had been told – presumably by friends and family – not to fight against Khelif.
“People say, ‘Don’t go, it’s dangerous, she’s a man’. Maybe it’s this,” Renzini said when asked about Carini’s emotional state after the fight.
The Italian boxing team leader, Alberto Tappa, also addressed the weight of pressure the young fighter had been under from back home to take a stand against the International Olympic Committee’s decision to let Khelif compete in Paris.
“A lot of people from Italy said not to fight,” Tappa said. “To protest.”
Angela Carini in tears at the post-fight press conference.Credit: Michael Chammas
Carini distanced herself from the suggestion that her actions in the ring were in response to any pressure to take a stand against Khelif’s inclusion in the tournament.
“When I said ‘It’s not fair, it’s not fair’, I meant that it’s not fair that my Olympics ends here,” Carini said. “It is not fair that now my dream must end here.”
For her part, Khelif barely spoke. She walked straight past reporters with her coach’s arm draped protectively around her shoulder and stopped only briefly to talk to the BBC.
“I am here for gold. I will fight anybody, I will fight them all,” she said.
Imane Khelif didn’t stop to speak with print media and was walked through the mixed zone by an Algerian staff member.Credit: Michael Chammas
But Carini, still with tears flooding down her face, answered questions for two hours in an emotionally draining ordeal for the 25-year-old from Naples.
Adding to the emotion was the memory of her father, who died three years ago while she was fighting at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
“Despite that, I got in the ring,” she said. “My mind was elsewhere in Tokyo. It’s because I left my father in a recovery room. I left for Tokyo to fulfil a dream, a dream that I had set myself. Then I lost my father during the Olympics, so from there it changed my life and I even stopped boxing.
“I fought hard to be here today, to be at this Olympics. For me to be here is a great victory and I did it for my father. I’m aware of my choices, I’m aware of what I’ve done and hope that my father is proud of his little girl.”
Next up for Khelif is Anna Luca Hamori, the first female Hungarian boxer to compete at the Olympics, who holds no fears about taking the ring with the Algerian.
“I’m not scared, I don’t care about the story,” she said. “If she or he is a man, it’ll be a bigger victory for me if I will win. So let’s do it.”
Hamori progressed through to the quarter-final against Khelif with a victory over Australian Marissa Williamson, who didn’t mince her words when asked about the Algerian’s presence at the Games.
Australia’s Marissa Williamson, left, lost to Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori in their women’s 66kg preliminary boxing match.Credit: AP
“What I know is at the women’s world championship last year in India, [two boxers] had been gender-assessed by the International Boxing Association,” Williamson said.
”The way I like to explain it is if you have a disability, the natural consequence of having a disability is it’s unfortunate that you can’t compete, and that’s another natural consequence of having this issue that you have to live your life with. You can’t put other people at risk.”
What did Carini say about stopping the fight?
“I couldn’t carry on,” Carini said. “I have a big pain in my nose and I said, ‘Stop’. It’s better to avoid keeping going. My nose started dripping from the first hit. You need maturity even in this, and it’s fine like this. I wanted to go the last kilometre for my father, but I couldn’t make it.
Italian Angela Carini abandoned her fight against Algeria’s Imane Khelif.Credit: Getty Images
“I said to myself, for the experience I have and the maturity as a woman I’ve got, I told myself, to my country and my dad, not to be mad at me. But I stopped [fighting]. I said ‘stop’ for myself. It could be the match of my life, but in that moment, I had to safeguard my life, too.”
Why was Imane Khelif disqualified from the world championships?
The IBA previously disqualified Khelif and another female fighter, Lin Yu-ting of Chinese Taipei, based on two tests conducted in the lead-up and at the World Boxing Championships in New Delhi last March.
Khelif was removed from the event just hours before she was set to compete for a gold medal forfailing to meet the IBA’s gender-eligibility criteria.
Lin Yu-ting celebrates winning the Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023.Credit: Getty
Lin competed and won the bronze in the tournament, although the medal was later revoked after she was also ruled to have failed her gender-eligibility test.
She was the first athlete from Chinese Taipei to be asked to take a biochemical test for gender eligibility since the IBA started using its new testing method. Lin will fight for the first time at the Olympics on Friday afternoon against Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova in front of what is again expected to be a strong media contingent.
Imane Khelif celebrates her win on Thursday.Credit: Eddie Jim
Why is the IOC not following the IBA eligibility criteria?
The International Olympic Committee – which took over the running of the tournament at this Olympics from the IBA due to financial and ethical irregularities – has a lower threshold of gender-eligibility criteria to the sport’s governing body.
The IBA released a statement on the eve of the Carini-Khelif bout stating that while the athletes had not undergone testosterone examinations at the world championships, they had been subjected to separate tests, the specifics of which it refused to detail for confidentiality reasons.
The IBA test results deemed that both athletes did not meet the required gender-eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.
Asked about the controversy before the bout, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said: “All the competitors comply with competition eligibility rules and that’s as it should be. That’s how these boxers concerned are taking part in these Games have taken part in previous world championships, have taken part in regional and continental competitions.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif, right, after defeating Italy’s Angela Carini, left, in their women’s 66kg preliminary boxing match.Credit: AP
“They comply with the eligibility rules and I think that’s as it should be. This involves real people. We are talking about real people’s lives.
“They have competed, and they continue to compete in this competition. They have lost, and they have won against other women throughout the years. And, by the way, I should make this absolutely clear for everyone: this is not a transgender issue. I think there has been some misreporting on this, and I think it’s very important to say that this is not a transgender issue. These women have been competing in competitions for many years.”
What does the IBA think of the IOC’s decision to allow the two fighters to compete?
The IBA released a statement late on Wednesday, the night before Carini was scheduled to fight Khelif, which read: “While IBA remains committed to ensuring competitive fairness in all of our events, we express concern over the inconsistent application of eligibility criteria by other sporting organisations, including those overseeing the Olympic Games.
Italian boxing staff talk to members of the IOC in the aftermath of Carini’s loss.Credit: Nine
“The IOC’s differing regulations on these matters, in which IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety. For clarification on why the IOC permits athletes with competitive advantages to compete in their events, we urge interested parties to seek answers directly from the IOC.”
What has the International Olympic Committee said?
In the hours leading up to the Khelif-Carini fight, the IOC responded to the IBA statement, doubling down on the decision to allow the two fighters to compete.
Late on Thursday night, after Khelif’s victory, the IOC issued a further statement that said Khelif and Lin were “victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”.
“We have seen in reports misleading information about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024,” the statement said.
“These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process.
According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA secretary general and CEO.
“The IBA board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA regulations. The minutes also say that the IBA should ‘establish a clear procedure on gender testing’. The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.”
Neither Khelif nor Lin has publicly identified as transgender or as having “differences in sexual development” (DSD).
Transgender women athletes who have transitioned after going through male puberty are different from DSD athletes.
In the context of the Olympics, DSD covers athletes who were assigned female gender at birth but have naturally occurring testosterone levels high enough to suggest internal sexual characteristics that are not typically male or female.