Controversial Boxer Imane Khelif Wins Women's Welterweight Gold Medal, Defeats China's Yang Liu
Controversial Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is now an Olympic gold medalist after defeating China's Yang Liu in the women's welterweight final at the Paris Games on Friday.
Khelif won the bout by unanimous decision (5-0).
The gold medal fight was the culmination of Khelif’s nine-day dominant run through the Olympic tournament that began with Khelif's first opponent — Italy's Angela Carini — dropping out after just 46 seconds. Carini said she was in too much pain from Khelif's punches.
Khelif — along with Taiwan's Lin Yu-Ting, who will compete in the women's featherweight final on Saturday — were removed from the Women's World Boxing Championship in March 2023.
Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA), announced the disqualifications after he met with executives to discuss "fairness among athletes and professionalism." He said that after "a series of DNA-tests," the IBA "uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women."
Kremlev told TASS News that the tests had proven the athletes in question "had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the sports events."
Imane Khelif dominated in all of her Olympic bouts.
(Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images)
While neither boxer identifies as transgender, it is suspected that both are impacted by a Difference of Sexual Development (DSD) — meaning they have both male and female genitalia.
It's the same condition that affects runner Caster Semenya, who won two Olympic gold medals before World Athletics revised its policy to require DSD athletes to reduce their testosterone levels to compete in women's events.
READ: Olympic Champ Says Being Born With Internal Testicles Doesn't 'Make Me Less Of A Woman'
World Athletics recognized the unfair advantage. But boxing operates on its own set of rules.
Still, the International Olympic Committee allowed Khelif and Lin to compete. In fact, IOC President Thomas Bach believes there's no sure way to determine the difference between men and women.
"We have said from the very beginning if someone is presenting us a scientifically solid system (for) how to identify men and women, we are the first ones to do it," Bach said. We do not like this uncertainty. We do not like it for the overall situation for nobody, so we would be more than pleased to look into it."
READ: IOC President Seeks Scientific Way To Identify Man, Woman
Khelif called for an end to the "bullying," telling SNTV that this wave of scrutiny "harms human dignity." The 25-year-old also said that winning a gold medal would be "the best response" to the backlash.
And a gold medal is exactly what Imane Khelif got. Who could have seen that coming?