Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, whose Olympic run was overshadowed by a controversy over her gender, is moving closer to winning gold in Paris. On Tuesday, Khelif won her semi-final in the women’s 66kg competition against Thai boxer Janjaem Suwannapheng, advancing to the final on August 9.
Khelif, who broke down in tears last Saturday after winning the quarter-final boxing match against Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori, was welcomed back into the ring with loud cheers from a hugely supportive crowd and the waving of numerous Algerian flags. After the victory she jumped for joy.
The Algerian boxed opened yesterday in a interview with SNTV, a sports video partner of The Associated Press, on how she feels about online bullying over claims she should not be allowed to compete in the women’s boxing competition.
The row over gender suitability erupted after her victory over Italy’s Angela Carini in a fight that lasted less than a minute and alluded to her being disqualified from last year’s Women’s World Championships along with Taiwan’s Lin Yu- ting, after two separate matches. tests showed they both had elevated testosterone levels in their systems. Some prominent figures such as JK Rowling and Elon Musk also fueled the controversy on social media, accusing her of competing in the wrong gender category.
In the SNTV interview, which was conducted in Arabic, Khelif claimed her family was worried about her. “God willing, this crisis will culminate in a gold medal, and that would be the best response,” she said. “I am sending a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has consequences, enormous consequences.”
Khelif said bullying “can destroy people, it can kill people’s minds, minds and spirits. It can divide people. And that is why I ask them to refrain from bullying.” She also thanked the Olympic Committee for doing her ‘justice’.
Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, has indeed supported her. In a press conference hours before Khelif’s quarter-final, he said Khelif had the right to participate in the women’s boxing competition because she was born and raised as a woman, has competed as such in the past and is registered as a woman on her passport. Bach suggested the controversy stemmed from a “politically motivated cultural war” and denounced the “hate speech with this aggression and abuse” spreading on social media and the way it is “fueled by this agenda is completely unacceptable.”
The International Boxing Association responded a few days later with a press conference in Paris with general manager Chris Roberts and Ioannis Filippatos, the former head of the IBA’s medical committee, both claiming that tests had been carried out on Khelif and Yu-ting in Istanbul . and India and had found that both boxers had XY chromosomes and had been given the opportunity to appeal the findings to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Roberts said Khelif appealed the decision but then withdrew.
Bach has suggested that the row was on the agenda of the International Boxing Association, which has been banned from the Olympics since June 2023 due to its ties to the Kremlin, its management by presidents from Uzbekistan and Russia, and the fact that it is backed by Russian state energy company Gazprom.
“What we have seen from the Russian side and in particular from the International Federation, from which we had to withdraw their recognition for many reasons, which they undertook long before these games with a smear campaign against France, against the games against the against the IOC ,” said Bach.