Italian boxer Angela Carini abandoned her Olympic bout against Algeria’s Imane Khelif after just 46 seconds because the blows from an opponent who had previously failed a gender test were too strong.
“I couldn’t continue. My nose was hurting so much that I said: ‘Stop’. It’s better not to continue. My nose started to run from the first blow,” Carini told reporters on Thursday after the 66kg bout. “It could have been the fight of my life but, at that moment, I also had to save my life,” he added.
Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships in New Delhi after her testosterone levels were deemed too high, resulting in her failing a gender test. But the Algerian can fight at the Paris Games, as she did in Tokyo three years ago, because Olympic boxing is run by a different body to the world championships.
The International Boxing Association, formerly known as AIBA, was in charge of the women’s world championships but is no longer recognised by the International Olympic Committee due to governance issues. The IOC insists that Khelif is listed as a woman on her passport and meets the requirements to fight in the women’s category.
What is the background for these words to spark a discussion? Studies carried out on Imane Khelif revealed a “higher testosterone level than the average level for women,” according to the aforementioned Italian newspaper. “To use the terminology of the Higher Institute of Health, she is “intersexual,” that is, she has “innate variations (present from birth) in the characteristics of the sex, which do not fit into the typical notions of the female body,” explained the journalist Antonino Morici in that newspaper.
The behind the scenes is that Khelif – like Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting – had been excluded by the International Boxing Association (IBA) from the finals of last year’s world championship in New Delhi for not “passing the gender eligibility tests”, according to the newspaper El Español. However, the International Olympic Committee decided to opt for a different path than the boxing organization and allowed them to be present at Paris 2024.
IBA President Umar Kremlev had warned that “based on DNA tests, we have identified several athletes who tried to deceive their colleagues by posing as women.” He clarified, as reported by the newspaper Marca of the Russian news agency Tass: “According to the results of the tests, it was shown that they have XY chromosomes. These athletes were excluded from the competition.”
Khelif, runner-up at the 2022 Istanbul World Championships after losing only the final against Ireland’s Amy Broadhurst, was in Tokyo 2020 but in the lightweight category: she beat Tunisian Mariem Homrani in her debut but fell in the quarter-finals against Ireland’s Kellie Harrington. Her participation in Paris 2024 put the spotlight on Khelif again and revived statements by Mexican Brianda Tamara Cruz Sandoval after losing in the final of a 2023 tournament: “When I fought her I felt very out of my reach, her blows hurt me a lot, I think I had never felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, not even in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized it,” she posted on her social networks when it became known that the athlete had been excluded from the World Championships.
At the beginning of 2024, the 25-year-old Algerian fighter had released some statements on her Facebook following the debate that arose around her disqualification: “They told me that I had characteristics that meant that I could not box against women. It is a big plot. There are people who have conspired against Algeria so that this flag is not raised and that I do not obtain the gold medal.” At that time, it was detailed that the International Boxing Federation (IBF) had made this determination because it did not respect “the eligibility criteria, but medical confidentiality prevents communicating the precise reasons for the decision.”
With all this background on the table, there was a strong debate in Italy about the steps that Carini should take in view of this welterweight fight in Paris 2024. “Angela received hundreds of messages, also on social media, inviting her not to fight for her safety and to give a sign of protest,” technical director Emanuele Renzini told Gazzetta.
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