Long before the scandal over Algerian boxer Imane Khelif became a controversy that has blotted out much of the Paris Olympics, the International Olympic Committee was warned what was coming.
Khelif has an X and a Y chromosome, the hallmarks of being a male.
However, in recent days defenders have said that the fighter, who has boxed in the female category for years, was born with a genetic anomaly and should be considered female.
The issue originally came to a head in 2023, when the International Boxing Association banned Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan from fighting in the female championship because they failed sex chromosome tests.
Man beats another woman in boxing.
Who has the money, power & influence to stop this??? https://t.co/hJgdgyIDoU— Tamara 🐊🌻 (@6thGenFloGrown) August 3, 2024
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But a World Boxing Organization official said the International Olympic Committee was warned in 2022 about what was coming, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
Istvan Kovacs, the European vice president of the WBO and former Secretary General of the IBA, said that the IOC brushed aside the warning.
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“The problem was not with the level of Khelif’s testosterone, because it can be adjusted nowadays, but with the result of the gender test, which clearly revealed that the Algerian boxer is biologically male,” Kovacs said.
Anna Luca Hamori has made her country of Hungary 🇭🇺 extremely proud by eating jabs from the genetic man Imane Khelif while returning fire bravely. Women should celebrate actual women not weak men who couldn’t make it fighting men. pic.twitter.com/1JvtjChw9T
— boxingMD (@BoxingMD1) August 3, 2024
In the crucible of global publicity that has followed Khelif’s pummeling of her first opponent and her victory over a second female, the IOC has dug in its heels.
IOC President Thomas Bach has said Khelif is a biological woman and called the tests used by the IBA “illegitimate.”
“Let’s be very clear here: We are talking about women’s boxing,” Bach said, according to ESPN. “We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised a woman, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women. And this is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.”
“What we see now is that some want to own the definition of who is a woman,” Bach said. “And there I can only invite them to come up with a scientific-based new definition of who is a woman, and how can somebody being born, raised, competed and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman?”
Khelif showered praise on the IOC for being allowed to fight in the female category.
Boxer Imane Khelif, who punched women so hard they admitted fearing for their lives, calls criticism “bullying” that can “kill”.
Surely the risk of a woman being killed by a man in sport ought to matter more than how someone feels.#SaveWomensSportspic.twitter.com/CCbB9A4fIx
— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) August 5, 2024
“I know that the Olympic Committee has done me justice, and I am happy with this remedy because it shows the truth,” Khelif said, the Daily Mail reported.
“The Arab population has known me for years and has seen me box in the IBA that wronged me [and] treated me unfairly, but I have God on my side,” Khelif said.
Imane Khelif should jump into a ring with a man, just like the one he is
— 🏴☠️Kevin B🏴☠️ (@kingkev198) August 5, 2024
Khelif fights Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand on Tuesday.
