Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, whose gender eligibility at the Paris Olympics has been scrutinized over the past week, advanced to the gold-medal round after winning Tuesday’s semifinal bout.
Khelif defeated Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng by unanimous decision in all three rounds of the latest match, securing a place in the final round of the women’s 66-kilogram division to be fought on Friday. Khelif appeared to have the support of the crowd, many members of which could be seen on the broadcast waving Algerian flags and chanting the boxer’s name.
The latest victory comes after Khelif easily beat Italian female boxer Angela Carini in a bout last week, causing the public to call the athlete’s gender into question. Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting have maintained that they are female as identified on their passports, but both boxers were disqualified at a women’s competition last year after failing sex-identification tests administered by the International Boxing Association.
The IBA, which has drawn criticism for its financial ties to Russia, defended its sex disqualifications of Khelif and Lin, both of whom tested as male. For this reason, the boxing federation pushed back against the International Olympic Committee’s decision to let the boxers compete at the Paris games this summer.
The IOC, in turn, denied the credibility of the IBA’s gender tests, maintaining that Khelif and Lin were born female and always competed as women without incident. Late last week, IOC president Thomas Bach invited outspoken critics of Olympic women’s boxing “to come up with a scientific-based new definition of who is a woman, and how can somebody being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman.”
The IOC’s “Portrayal Guidelines” argue that “a person’s sex category is not assigned based on genetics alone.”
The gender controversy at the heart of the ongoing Summer Olympics has received international attention from major public figures, including Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling and former president Donald Trump, coming to the defense of women’s sports.
While rumors that Khelif is transgender initially spread after the viral match with Carini, Khelif has not publicly identified as such — the same is true of Lin. Instead, both may have rare gender disorders that provide significant competitive advantages in women’s divisions.
Khelif called for an end to bullying on Sunday as online criticism of the match with Carini continues to mount.
“I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects,” Khelif told SNTV, a sports-video partner of the Associated Press. “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
Khelif notably declined to answer when asked if the athlete had been tested for anything other than doping, such as gender. The boxer did not want to talk about the subject.
Khelif will fight either Taiwan’s Chen Nien-chin or China’s Yang Liu on Friday. Lin will face Turkey’s Esra Yildiz Kahraman in Wednesday’s semifinal bout next, with the winner advancing to the women’s 57-kilogram gold-medal round on Saturday.