- Gender row boxer Imane Khelif stormed to Olympic gold in Paris on Friday night
- The Algerian female boxer dismantled China’s Yang Liu in the welterweight final
- Khelif, the heavy pre-fight favourite, won every round with every judge
A final opponent had been dismantled and there was a gold medal around her neck, but Imane Khelif was not done throwing punches.
The Algerian at the centre of a gender row, over whom questions will now grow louder after she completed a Parisian stroll to Olympics glory, came into the post-fight press conference swinging.
Here, there was no ducking or dodging, only more powerful blows, this time raining down on the critics who say she should not have been here, fighting against women, after failing a sex test last year.
It took two minutes for the inevitable to be asked. What was her message to the haters? Khelif, as she has done so successfully over the last fortnight, took aim and did not miss.
‘I am fully qualified,’ she said. ‘I am a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived as a woman, I competed as woman – there is no doubt.’
Gender row boxer Imane Khelif stormed to Olympic gold in Paris on Friday night
The Algerian dismantled China’s Yang Liu in the welterweight final at a packed Roland Garros to cap a controversial march to first place in which she did not lose a single round
The 25-year-old was not done there. ‘There are enemies of success of course,’ she added. ‘That gives my success a special taste because of these attacks.’
Coming into this welterweight final against China’s hapless Yang Liu, Khelif had won 12 fights in a row. There was to be no unlucky 13. What we saw was familiar.
Rangy left jab, brutal right hand. Time and time again she rocked her opponent backwards, legs propelling in almost cartoon-esque fashion.
Multiple clean shots to the centre of the nose. There was power but there was also accuracy. Khelif had not lost a round previously. She was in no danger of doing so here in front of a crowd so partisan it booed Liu into the ring. Five judges and five identical scorecards. Once again, the verdict was unanimous. Not much else is.
Those on the other side of a polarised argument big on opinion but still short on facts, will use her triumph as more evidence that something is amiss. That officials from the murky, Russian-led IBA were right to turf her out of last year’s World Championships. That the IOC, at war with the IBA and currently threatening to remove boxing from the programme, need to check more than what it says on someone’s passport before letting them fight in the female category.
The most eagerly anticipated fight of the Games turned into another mismatch, with the 25-year-old rocking her opponent on multiple occasions in front of a delighted crowd
Khelif, the heavy pre-fight favourite, won every round with every judge and raised her arm in a mock military salute before being carried around the ring on the shoulders of her coach
Khelif, who took an instant call from the country’s president, also had a political message. ‘I want to tell the world that they should commit to the Olympic principles and they should not bully people,’ she said.
‘This is the message of the Olympics. I hope people stop bullying. We are in the Olympic to perform as athletes, to our families. I hope will not see any similar attacks in future.’
She may not get her wish. Within minutes of the final bell tennis legend Martina Navratilova piled in, tweeting ‘shame on you, IOC’ and ‘thanks for nothing’. This gold will not bring the matter to a close, not even for this weekend.
Saturday night Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, who also failed a gender test and was also kicked out of those World Championships, will fight for gold in the featherweight division.
On Friday Olympics chief Thomas Bach again defended the right of both to box here but added that he would be the first to adopt an agreed ‘scientifically solid system’.‘
This system is working and so therefore our decision is clear,’ he said. ‘Women should be allowed to take part in women’s competitions and the two are women.’For now, victory is Khelif’s.
Few would bet against the same for Yu-Ting. They may well want to defend their medals in Los Angeles in 2028. Whether they get the chance to do so, with boxing’s very existence in the Games under threat, remains to be seen.
The biological female has found herself embroiled in a fierce dispute this summer
As previously mentioned, Khelif is one of two athletes—alongside Taiwan‘s Lin Yu-ting—who have been authorised to compete in the Paris 2024 after being disqualified from last year’s Women’s World Championships for allegedly failing gender eligibility tests.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is overseeing boxing at the Paris 2024 Games but did not organise the World Championships, said that Khelif was disqualified in India due to elevated testosterone levels.
However, after receiving a bye in the first round at the Olympics, Khelif—who also competed in the Tokyo Games—faced criticism following her bout with Italian boxer Angela Carini.
Within the first 30 seconds of their clash, Carini was hit in the face and went to her corner to have her headgear adjusted by her coach, with reports stating she had broken her nose.
Although she briefly continued, Carini barely threw a punch before telling her corner ‘it’s not fair’ and then abandoning the match ‘for her own safety’ – instantly dropping to her knees and crying.
‘I wasn’t able to finish the match. I felt a strong pain to my nose and I said [to myself] for the experience that I have and the maturity as a woman that I have, I said I hope my nation won’t take it badly, I hope my dad won’t take it badly – but I stopped, I said stop for myself,’ Carini told BBC Sport after the fight.
‘It could have been the match of a lifetime, but I had to preserve my life as well in that moment. I didn’t have fear, I don’t fear the ring. I don’t fear taking the blows. But this time there’s an end for everything, and I put an end to this match, because I wasn’t able to [continue].’
After the match was stopped, the referee raised Khelif’s hand in the air. But a visibly furious Carini yanked her own hand away from the fight official and walked off.
Khelif (right) progressed to the final of the women’s 66kg boxing event on Tuesday
Khelif secured a victory via unanimous decision over Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand
Shortly after her win was confirmed, Algerian Khelif celebrated wildly by dancing in the ring
During the rapid fight, Carini was rocked by two punches from Khelif and said the savage force of the blows made it ‘impossible to continue’.
Ignoring the Algerian after calling a halt to the bout, the Italian fighter then plunged to her knees and burst into tears – later saying she said she had never felt such strong blows in a contest before.
Speaking after the match, the heartbroken Italian said: ‘I’m used to suffering. I’ve never taken a punch like that, it’s impossible to continue. I’m nobody to say it’s illegal.
‘I got into the ring to fight. But I didn’t feel like it anymore after the first minute. I started to feel a strong pain in my nose. I didn’t give up, but a punch hurt too much and so I said enough. I’m leaving with my head held high.’
She said she did not walk away from the fight as a protest against her opponent’s inclusion, but that was a decision for the Olympics to consider.
Asked why she knelt at the end of the match, she said it was for her late father, who died in 2021, before adding: ‘I am sorry not to have taken Italy on to the podium.’
She was taken away for medical assessment to examine the seriousness of her facial injuries which included a bruised nose.
Sex Matters’ Maya Forstater reacted with outraged emojis to a video of the conclusion of the bout, where a commentator quips ‘job done’.