Imane Khelif guaranteed at least a boxing bronze at Paris Olympics
Controversial intersex boxer Imane Khelif still has the opportunity to win a gold medal after another crushing win in front of the Algerian’s passionate supporters.
Controversial intersex boxer Imane Khelif is guaranteed at least an Olympic bronze medal and has the chance to go for a gold medal after delivering an unanimous and crushing defeat of Hungarian champion Anna Luca Hamori amid a fierce global debate about intersex athletes at the Paris Olympics.
Khelif dedicated the latest easy three round win early Sunday morning to “Algeria, and the Algerian people” and dropped down signing “Khelif” on the canvas.
At one point Khelif hugged a familiar face amid the raucous atmosphere, saying defiantly in French to an Algerian colleague “I am woman”.
While wiping tears, the boxer said the win was for all the boxing women in Algeria.
“I am very happy, I want to take on the world and the Arabic world,’’ the 25-year-old said.
At least 300 broadcaster and media personnel swarmed the boxing “mixed zone” where the athletes give their opinions about their performance – an indication for the IOC about the worldwide interest in this debate about protecting female competition.
Earlier the media stand was congested with TV broadcasters having to sit on the floor and others squeezed in on the stairwell as large sections of the crowd waving large Algerian flags chanted “Imane, Imane”.
Khelif has come a long way from selling scrap metal and bread to pay for transport costs to the gym near the family home in Tiaret, to supplement the family’s income selling couscous after being inspired to take up boxing from watching it at the Rio Olympics.
It appears that the worries about Khelif’s gender qualification may have originated in a fight the Algerian had back in early 2022 when she sent Greek boxer Olga Papadatou to the medical corner in the second round and those concerns were amplified in Spain.
The International Boxing Association then conducted tests prior to the world championships that year, but the results didn’t come back in time to take action. The test was repeated a year later and Khelif was withdrawn from the 2023 world championships. IBA president has since said Khelif has XY chromosomes and the IOC said on Saturday “we have not said the boxer is not DSD (intersex)’’.
Khelif has also trained in Spain but in a Spanish radio interview the team official Rafa Lozano said “I don’t see it as fair”. He described how Khelif came to Madrid but the fighter was too powerful for the female Spanish boxers.
“We couldn’t put her with anyone,’’ he said.
“We put her with Jennifer Fernandez and it hurt her. Whoever we put her with, it hurt her.’’
In the end the coaches had Khelif train with the male boxer Jose Quiles. But in Algeria any challenge to Khelif’s femininity is being met with contempt.
However, as far as Hungary was concerned, it appears Olympic bosses had employed a three line whip to try and take the sting out of earlier inflammatory social media posts expressed by Hamori that she was fighting a “beast’’.
After the bout Hungary’s IOC member Balázs Fürjes stood beside Hamori explaining that it was not an option for the boxer to have withdrawn from the fight and described her performance as “heroic and brave”.
He added: “We Hungarians are not afraid of the competition, we know what it’s like to fight with too much strength or with a disadvantage. We fight bravely, heroically, and this was the only option, that Luca fights bravely and heroically. “‘
He added that the Olympic movement would make the “necessary and good decisions’’.
Khelif, who will face the Thai champion Janjaem Suwannapheng in the semifinal at Roland Garros on Wednesday morning Australian time.
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