2024-08-01 21:35:25
PARIS. Don’t get in that ring. The door that many would not like to open, perhaps even the IOC, is a boxing match between the Italian Angela Carini and the Algerian Imane Khelif. And even before that, a verbal match between those who attack the Olympics for the presence of Imane, excluded from the World Championships because her DNA has a male chromosome, those who say they are worried and those who defend the choice.
The wait for the announced welterweight match is on, and the Italian sport is holding its breath. The blows have already been thrown, before putting on the gloves, and at the moment there are no winners or losers on points. The CONI has asked the IOC that “the rights of all athletes are in accordance with the Olympic Charter and health regulations”, that is, the rules on the complicated issue of gender.
Italian boxing, already in shock over the eliminations of its top Italians, is worried about the stone fist of Khelif, who Carini met in the Assisi training camps, and which Mexican Brianda Tamara defined as “worse than those of many male sparring partners”.
The Algerian press is outraged because Italy is talking about ‘transgender’, but the political controversy that began with the IOC’s confirmation that Khelif was admitted to the tournament like the other high-testosterone boxer, Lin Yu Ting of Taiwan, continues and raises the tone. First the anti-transgender Olympic tweet by JK Rowling – from Harry Potter and Imane Khelif – and the indignation of Matteo Salvini, then the intervention of the Minister for the Family, Eugenia Roccella.
“The participation of two transgender boxers in the Games is worrying, after they were not admitted to other international competitions,” he said. “Equal competition will not be guaranteed for Angela Carini,” said the Minister of Sport, Andrea Abodi, in Paris, while the entire center-right in Italy is up in arms against the IOC. “She is not a transgender athlete, but an intersex,” replied gaynet. The International Olympic Committee, meanwhile, is not interested in knowing whether the Algerian is transgender or hyperandrogynous like Caster Semenya, the South African cross-country skier who became a worldwide phenomenon.
For its part, the IOC had already closed all questions six days ago, when the first doubts about the draw emerged from Italian boxing: for us, the IOC’s answer, Khelif is a woman. And here the intrigue of the rules emerges. In 2023, the world federation excluded the Algerian from the world final because the DNA test revealed the presence of the XY gene, typical of men: “We guarantee fair competition”. Position reiterated by the IBA, with a statement that measures the weight of the controversy (as well as the rivalry with the IOC): no revelation on the type of tests carried out in 2023, the differentiation from the Lausanne rules, and the consideration that the admission “raises serious questions on the principle of fair competition and the protection of athletes”. The IOC, however, relies on the level of testosterone, the male strength hormone, the only criterion – in its opinion – to define whether a female athlete is advantaged, even in the inclusion Olympics.
2024-08-01 21:35:25