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The Algerian boxer at the heart of an international row over gender eligibility has been crowned Olympic champion after winning her gold-medal bout on Friday night in Paris.
Imane Khelif, 25, was paraded around the ring on the shoulders of her coach after beating China’s Yang Liu by unanimous decision, in front of a full house inside Roland Garros, home of the French Open tennis tournament.
“I’m very happy. For eight years, this has been my dream and I’m now the Olympic champion and gold medallist,” Khelif said afterwards.
Khelif’s progress through the women’s 66kg competition in Paris has garnered huge worldwide attention, and drawn the International Olympic Committee into a growing controversy around gender eligibility rules.
The Algerian, who also competed in the Tokyo Games in 2021, was disqualified from last year’s world championships by the International Boxing Association, along with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting. The IBA said it had made its decision after the pair failed to meet “gender eligibility” criteria following tests carried out during the tournament. It has not provided details of the tests or said why they took place.
Rules on gender eligibility differ from sport to sport, and are determined by the relevant governing body.
However, the IBA was stripped of its governing role by the IOC in 2019 because of concerns about its finances, ethics and integrity. The IOC, which assumed oversight of boxing in Paris, has also repeatedly questioned the IBA’s ties to Russia’s state-backed energy giant Gazprom.
The IOC gave Khelif and Lin the green light to compete in Paris, saying that the IBA tests had been “cobbled together overnight” and appeared to follow no established protocol. According to the IOC, the IBA claimed the two boxers showed elevated testosterone levels, while the boxing body said its tests related to chromosomes.
In the opening round of the competition in Paris, Khelif’s opponent Angela Carini of Italy withdrew after less than a minute, saying she feared for her life.
The match prompted complaints from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and US Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, as well as condemnation from some commentators, who accused the IOC of failing to protect the integrity of women’s sport.
The IOC said the row was caused by “misleading information”, while Algeria’s sports ministry blamed “baseless propaganda”.
“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport. This is not a transgender case,” Mark Adams, the IOC’s head of communications, said afterwards.
Lin, who was world champion in her weight class in 2018 and 2022, is due to fight in the 57kg gold medal match on Saturday. At the Tokyo Olympics, she lost in the round of 16.
Earlier this week, the IBA held a chaotic press conference in Paris, during which its Russian president hurled criticism at the IOC, while the former chair of its medical committee — a specialist in IVF treatment — responded angrily to questions from assembled journalists. Adams of the IOC later described the event as a “travesty”.
As a result of the rift between the IOC and the IBA, boxing is currently excluded from the programme for the Los Angeles games in 2028.
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