Amy Broadhurst has every reason to defend Imane Khelif. The problem is that her defense misses the whole point.
Yes, Broadhurst is an object lesson in the fact that the Algerian boxer can be beaten. She’s the last person to beat her, in fact, according to BoxRec, in a bout over two years ago.
However, Khelif proved to be more difficult for Italy’s Angela Carini, who she dispatched in just 46 seconds and two punches; the Italian boxer then retired and said she feared for her safety.
“I had to preserve my life,” Carini said.
The problem, as you’ve doubtlessly heard if you’ve been following the story, is that Khelif reportedly has an intersex condition called Differences of Sexual Development, or DSD. It’s an umbrella term for someone whose chromosomes and outward sex characteristics don’t match; in Khelif’s case, it means that she was born with male chromosomes but female genitalia.
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The official reports on exactly what happened have been somewhat contradictory for reasons of confidentiality, but the general consensus is this: Khelif and another Olympics boxer, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, both were disqualified from the International Boxing Association world championships in 2023 for DSD.
The International Olympics Committee, which used to allow Olympic boxing to be governed by the IBA, now runs the sport under its own rules due to a long-running dispute over governance and financial issues. The reasons behind the contratemps are too arcane and longwinded to explain here, but they are indeed explicable. What’s inexplicable is the IOC’s statement on its decision to ignore the IBA’s decision and rely, instead, on its own rules, where “the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport.”
In the statement, the IOC said that the two athletes “were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision” and that “[t]he current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.”
Broadhurst’s defense of Khelif, according to the Belfast Telegraph, was equally inexplicable.
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“Have a lot of people texting me over Imane Khelif,” the Irish/British boxer and 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medalist said on social media.
“Personally I don’t think she has done anything to ‘cheat’. I thinks it’s the way she was born & that’s out of her control. The fact that she has been beaten by 9 females before says it all.”
Have a lot of people texting me over Imane Khelif. Personally I don’t think she has done anything to ‘cheat’. I thinks it’s the way she was born & that’s out of her control. The fact that she has been beating by 9 females before says it all.
— Amy Broadhurst (@amybroadhurst12) July 31, 2024
Let’s start with the fact that meaning to “cheat” and being ineligible are two different things.
If Khelif has XY chromosomes, this means she has the advantages of going through male puberty at the very least — which, as Reuters noted, makes a serious difference in combat sports.
“Women’s sports categories exist in most sports in recognition of the clear advantage that going through male puberty gives an athlete,” the wire service noted.
“That advantage is not just through higher testosterone levels but also in muscle mass, skeletal advantage and faster twitch muscle.
“In combat sports such as boxing, this can be a serious safety issue.”
Whether or not Khelif did anything to realize this is beyond the point. In another sport, perhaps one could make an argument that while this is an ultra-rare genetic advantage, all athletes, at some level, are winners of the genetic lottery; women with DSD like Khelif reportedly has are simply Powerball winners among a field of lesser lottery winners — ones who just won a genetic scratch-off game, say, to extend the metaphor.
When safety enters the equation and replaces fairness as the sole operative goal, however, that metaphor doesn’t hold.
We don’t arbitrarily let larger people fight smaller people in combat sports. That’s why we have weight divisions — not just because we want to see a good match, but because letting a heavyweight like Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali, in their prime, beat up on some poor flyweight is essentially a recipe for a coma.
While this may be a reductio ad absurdum of Khelif’s case, it’s not especially far off when you consider she’s one of two women with male sex hormones who likely underwent male puberty and would likely still have naturally higher testosterone levels. The latter may be checked through hormone treatments, but the former advantage cannot be undone.
A heavyweight boxer has not “done” anything to “cheat” by not being a flyweight, generally speaking, they’re just naturally larger. Similarly, Khelif has not “done” anything to “cheat” by having XY chromosomes, but that still places her in a category where the IBA disqualifies her — and the IOC’s explanation for waving that aside is thoroughly unconvincing.
Also, while Khelif can be defeated — and again, Broadhurst is proof — keep in mind that those losses are clustered toward the beginning of her career, which started when she was just 19. Her last loss, to Broadhurst, was over two years ago. Five of those nine losses came in her first six bouts, which took place before 2020.
The problem is not intent, nor is merely fairness. This is about safety. If Broadhurst wishes to disregard her own, that’s fine. That’s a personal decision. A woman shouldn’t have to disregard hers to win an Olympic medal.
