Former Boxing Champ Dumbfounded By Olympics Gender Controversy Involving 'XY Chromosome' Fighter

It's not just regular, common-sense having folks who have never stepped foot in a boxing ring who are confused and frankly outraged over the fact that a boxer previously deemed to have XY chromosomes is allowed to fight against women in the Olympics. Claressa Shields, a two-time Team USA Olympic gold medalist, can't wrap her mind around the situation either.

Algeria's Imane Khelif, the boxer who was caught just last year "pretending to be" a woman, needed all of 46 seconds and a couple of landed punches to force her opponent, Angela Carini out of Italy, to abandon the match. After the loss, Carini explained that one punch from Khelif "hurt too much," and she understandably elected to call it quits.

Shields, who has held multiple world championships in her career, called out Olympic organizers for allowing the fight to take place.

"[At] my first Olympics, I was 17 years old, so I hadn't even fully developed as a woman, so I couldn't imagine getting inside the ring with a biological man," Shields said. 

"I don't even see how the Olympics did something like this."

Shields, who is now 29, offered sympathy for Carini as she knows exactly what it takes to qualify for the Olympics in the first place.

"It is very hard to qualify for the Olympics," Shields told Fox News. "You have to go through so many different international tournaments, country tournaments to even make it to the Olympics. So, for me, I can understand her devastation. But it shouldn't be ruined due to a man. And I think that the Olympics definitely dropped the ball."

Khelif is one of two fighters - Taiwan's Lin Yu-Ting being the other - who was removed from 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." 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is disregarding, and maybe just simply ignoring, past test results allowing both Lin and Khelif into the ring in Paris to fight in the women's division.