Algeria’s Imane Khelif celebrates after defeating Hungary’s Anna Hamori in the women’s 66kg boxing quarter-finals on Saturday.
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John Locher/AP
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Both female boxers at the center of global controversy fought their way to the medal podium.
Algeria’s Imane Khalif and Taiwan’s Lin Yuting each won their respective quarter-finals at the weekend, meaning they will both leave Paris with a medal – due to the way Olympic boxing is scored. The only question is what color they will be.
“I want to tell the world that I am a woman and I will continue to be a woman,” Khalif told reporters after Saturday’s game. Begins with cheers of support from the crowd and ends with Khalif Crying with joy.
Khalif and Lim came under scrutiny last week after Khalif’s maiden victory when it was revealed that they had both been disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Championships due to unspecified gender results Qualification test.
The championships are organized by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA), which no longer governs Olympic boxing. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) withdrew recognition of the agency in June 2023 due to concerns over its governance, finances and ethics.
The IOC has vigorously defended the boxer and raised growing questions about the reliability of last year’s test that disqualified the boxer midway through the championships, just days after Khalif defeated the Russian boxer in the first round. .
At a half-way briefing on Saturday, IOC President Thomas Bach reiterated that both Khalif and Lim were born and raised as women, are described as female on their passports and have competed against women for years — and has not faced questions about female athletes.
“We will not engage in a politically motivated … culture war,” Bach said. “In this context, all this hate speech, aggression and abuse that is happening on social media and being driven by this agenda is completely unacceptable.”
According to a UNICEF biography, 25-year-old Khalif took up boxing as a teenager, in part because she was able to dodge the punches of boys who fought with her on the soccer field. National Ambassador.
In her first interview since the controversy began, she asked “people around the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter and not bully all athletes because this will have repercussions, huge repercussions.”
“It can destroy people, it can kill people’s minds, spirits and minds. It can divide people,” Khalif told SNTV in Arabic on Sunday, describing bullying as “something that damages human dignity.”
The Algerian Olympic and Sports Commission said it had lodged a formal complaint with the International Olympic Committee to protest the online harassment of Khalif, calling it a “serious breach of sportsmanship and the Olympic Charter by a participant in the boxing championship.”
Khalif admits that her experience has affected her greatly and worries about her family back home (her parents have publicly defended her). But she applauded the IOC’s response and hoped for gold instead of silver.
“God willing, this crisis will end with a gold medal, that will be the best response,” said Khalif, who will compete in the women’s welterweight semifinals on Tuesday.
After leaving the Tokyo Olympics empty-handed, Jeremy Lin is on the verge of redemption when he competes in the featherweight semifinals on Wednesday.
Olympic officials accuse IBF of smear campaign
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, pictured at Sunday’s ceremony, has defended boxers and lashed out at the International Boxing Association (IBA) in recent days.
Frank Fife/AFP via Getty Images
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Frank Fife/AFP via Getty Images
The IBA claimed last year that tests proved both athletes had XY chromosomes, which are usually found in men. Last week, the agency doubled down, saying the athletes were “found to have a competitive advantage over other female competitors,” but declined to elaborate on the specifics, saying only that the two were not tested for testosterone.
The International Olympic Committee considered the testing process arbitrary and the results illegal.
“The testing, the testing methods, the testing ideas that happened overnight are not legitimate and do not deserve any response,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams told reporters on Sunday.
The IOC also noted that it abolished comprehensive gender testing in 1999 and has no plans to revisit such procedures because they have a long history of being intrusive and inaccurate.
In his speech this weekend, Bach specifically accused Russia and the International BA of “launching a smear campaign against France, the Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee” before the Olympics.
He said they had made “some comments” about it and declined to give them more air time.
“If you want to know the credibility of the information released by this no longer recognized international federation, I can only suggest that you look at recent comments made by them and the leaders of this federation and make your own judgment,” Bach said.
Russia is all but shunned by the Olympic community due to its invasion of Ukraine and past doping violations. The once powerful team sent just 15 athletes to Paris, all of whom competed as “neutral”.
In a statement released on Friday, the IBA stood by its procedures and condemned Olympic organizers for allowing Lin and Khalif to compete in Paris. It continued to promote the lie that they were not women and said it would “never support a boxing match between any gender”.
The IBA held a press conference on Monday, with Chairman Umar Kremlev giving a lengthy speech via video From personal attacks on Bach to criticism of the opening ceremony in Paris.
“Today we are witnessing the death of women’s boxing and the corruption of judges. All of this happened during Mr. Bach’s presidency,” he said, according to Reuters.
Italian boxer apologizes for sparking controversy
Italy’s Angela Carini cried in the ring on Thursday after abandoning her women’s 66kg preliminary round match against Imane Khelif. She has since publicly apologized to Khalif.
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Further inflaming the situation, the IBA offered a financial reward to the Italian boxer whose defeat sparked controversy last week.
Italy’s Angela Carini quits match against Khalif after 46 seconds Rings burst into tears. She later told reporters she had never been hit so badly before and suspected she had a broken nose.
Within hours, several prominent figures who had expressed anti-trans views in the past – including author JK Rowling, former President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – weighed in, Khalif was incorrectly described as male and raised questions about her gender.
Carini has since expressed regret to Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport “All this controversy really makes me sad for myself and her opponent,” both of whom were just out there fighting, Friday.
“This is not what I wanted to do,” she said, according to several English translations. “In fact, I want to apologize to her and everyone else. I’m angry because my Olympics have been in vain.”
Kalini said she had “nothing against Khalif,” adding, “On the contrary, if I happen to see her again, I will give her a hug.”
Kremlev announced that day that the IBA would award Carini “a bonus just like the Olympic champion” – Carini will receive a bonus of US$50,000, and her coach and the Italian National Boxing Federation will each receive US$25,000. bonus.
The IBA said it would also support Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova, who lost to Jeremy Lin in the last 16 on Friday.
The Italian boxing federation said in a statement over the weekend that it would not accept IBA bonuses, according to the Associated Press, noting that the Italian boxing federation was one of about three dozen Western groups that left the IBA last year. Boxing’s governing body hopes to gain regulatory authority over future Olympics.
