Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is at the center of a gender controversy in sports after her opponent, Italian Angela Carini, withdrew from their match at the Paris Olympics just 46 seconds in.
Conservatives like former U.S. President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have expressed their outrage. Khelif was sidelined from the 2023 World Championships after failing a murky gender eligibility test for female competition, administered by the proscribed International Boxing Association (IBA).
Khelif was born female, as indicated by her passport, which is the eligibility threshold for boxing from the International Olympic Committee due to the ongoing dispute between the IOC and the governing body of the sport.
Khelif is an outstanding athlete with boxing talent and has competed at the highest international level, including major amateur tournaments over the past six years, such as the Tokyo Olympics. She holds several regional titles.
Before this week, Khelif was not recognized as a dominant champion, an overwhelming physical specimen, or even a particularly imposing hitter for her weight class.
Khelif defeated Carini in just 46 seconds after the Italian left the match in tears, leading many to label Khelif as an unstoppable force whose presence endangers the health of her opponents.
The reality, for those who do watch or participate in Olympic-style boxing, is very different. Here’s what you need to know about Khelif and the controversy:
Khelif eventually caught the attention of the national team of Algeria, making her debut at a significant event in 2018, where she lost in the first round of the then AIBA World Championships. She lost five of her first six fights at the highest amateur level but improved and rose above the challenges.
Khelif was one of three Algerian boxers who qualified for Tokyo three years ago. She won her first match but lost in the second to the eventual champion, Irish Kellie Harrington.
She also gained prominence with strong performances in the following two editions of the world championships and even became a national ambassador for UNICEF earlier this year.
She had previously competed without issues and was disqualified by the sport’s governing body only after defeating Russian boxer Azalia Amineva at the 2023 event. The IBA is controlled by Umar Kremlev, a Russian who brought in the state-owned Gazprom as its main sponsor and moved much of the organization’s operations to Russia.
The IOC stated this week that it was “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA” in which Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting “were abruptly disqualified without due process.” Lin was suspended for failing to meet undisclosed eligibility requirements concerning a biochemical analysis.
The details behind both disqualifications are extremely murky, as often is the case with the IBA. The organization has not revealed much about the nature of the analyses, including what substances were tested and who conducted the testing. This lack of transparency would be unacceptable in major Olympic sports, and the IBA has been banned from the Olympic program since 2019.
The IOC emphasized on Thursday that the IBA’s own documents indicate that the decision was made unilaterally by the organization’s general secretary. These documents also note that the IBA resolved that a “clear procedure regarding gender testing should be established” after sanctioning the two boxers.
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AP journalists Graham Dunbar in Paris and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.