Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer at the center of a gender-related controversy, clinched a medal at the Paris Olympics on Saturday, defeating Hungarian opponent Anna Luca Hamori in the quarterfinal round of the competition’s boxing tournament. Khelif will win at least a bronze medal in her second victory at the 2024 games.
Khelif came to international attention after opponent Angela Carini quit a Thursday match after 46 seconds, yelling “it isn’t fair” after receiving two punches from Khelif. The Algerian — alongside Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting — had previously been ruled ineligible to compete in the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships after a sex-identification test, sparking rumors after the Khelif-Carini match that Khelif is transgender.
Neither Khelif nor Lin have publicly identified as “transgender,” but IBA president Umar Kremlev told a Russian news agency in 2023 that Khelif had been disqualified because DNA tests had shown Khelif “had XY chromosomes.” The IBA issued a statement after the Khelif-Carini match explaining its 2023 decision.
“This disqualification was a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA regulations,” the statement read. “Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over the other female competitors.”
Before Khelif’s Saturday bout, the Hungarian Boxing Association announced it would send letters of protest to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Hungary’s Olympic committee over the Algerian boxer’s participation in the women’s event.
“I am very sad that there is a scandal and that we have to talk about a topic that is not compatible with sport,” HBA board member Lajos Berkó said on Hungarian state-run television. “This is unacceptable and outrageous.”
Carini ultimately apologized for her statements about Khelif, saying on Friday that she is “sorry for [her] opponent” and that “if the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.”
“It wasn’t something I intended to do,” Carini said. “Actually, I want to apologize to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke.”
Former president Donald Trump weighed in on the controversy on Friday, posting a video of the fight on his Truth Social account with the caption, “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS!”
The IOC defended its decision to allow Khelif to compete in the women’s boxing tournament, with IOC spokesman Mark Adams saying Khelif was “born female, was registered female, lived her live as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport,” adding that “this is not a transgender case.”
In a separate statement, the IOC disputed the results of the IBA’s test that led the boxing association to disqualify Khelif and Lin.
“These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA,” the statement read. “Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process. The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure — especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.”
Despite the IOC’s defense, questions remain about Khelif’s participation. As National Review‘s editorial on the subject notes, Carini “said that ‘after years of experience, I felt a strong pain in the nose’ and she has ‘never felt a punch like this,'” while Mexican boxer Brianda Tamara “stated that Khelif’s ‘punches hurt me a lot’ and, ‘I don’t think I had ever felt that way in my 13 years as a boxer, not even in my sparring with men.'”