Paris Olympics boxing champion Imane Khelif files complaint for online harassment

Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif, the Algerian at the centre of a gender eligibility row, has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment.

Gold medallist Algeria's Imane Khelif poses on the podium. Picture: AFP

Paris Olympics boxing champion Imane Khelif, the Algerian at the centre of a gender eligibility row, has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment, her lawyer said.

“The boxer Imane Khelif has decided to begin a new fight, a fight for justice, dignity and honour,” Nabil Boudi said in a statement, saying Khelif had filed the complaint for “aggravated online harassment … to Paris prosecutors”.

He added: “The investigation will determine who was behind this misogynist, racist and sexist campaign, but will also have to concern itself with those who fed the online lynching.”

The “iniquitous harassment” the boxing champion had been subjected to would remain “the biggest stain on these Olympic Games”, said Boudi.

Khelif won the women’s 66kg final against China’s Yang Liu in a unanimous points decision, having been the focus of intense scrutiny in the French capital in the past fortnight.

Imane Khelif reacts after winning the women’s 66kg final. Picture: AFP

Together with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won the 57kg women’s final on Saturday, Khelif was disqualified from last year’s world championships after they failed gender eligibility testing.

However they were cleared to compete in Paris, setting the stage for one of the biggest controversies of the Games.

Lin was asked after her title win whether she would follow Khelif’s lead in going down the legal route, replied: “This is something I will discuss with my team. We will decide later what the next step will be.”

After her victory, Khelif said the gold medal she had won was the best response to her critics.

Asked by reporters about the row over her eligibility, she said: “I am fully qualified to take part, I am a woman like any other. I was born a woman, lived a woman and competed as a woman.”

The International Olympic Committee is organising the boxing in Paris because of concerns over the International Boxing Association’s running of the sport.

At a press conference this week, the IBA’s Russian president Umar Kremlev claimed that Khelif and Lin had undergone “genetic testing that shows that these are men”.

The IBA were responsible for the world championships in 2023 that Lin and Khelif were thrown out of, but the IOC cleared them to box in Paris.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said his organisation would decide in the first half of next year whether or not boxing will be allowed at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

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Bach has already warned in Paris that boxing’s national federations need to find a new and “reliable” international partner for the IOC to be sure the sport features on the program for 2028.

Asked if the IOC was prepared to consider reviewing the gender issue that has dogged the Paris competition, Bach said: “We have said from the very beginning, if someone is presenting us a scientifically solid system how to identify men and women, we are the first ones to do it.

“We do not like this uncertainty. We do not like it for the overall situation so we would be more than pleased to look into it.

“But what is not possible that someone is saying this is not a woman just by looking at somebody or by falling prey to a defamation campaign by a not credible organisation with highly political interest.”