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As an Olympic boxing controversy deepens, the women at its center are poised to medal
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The two female boxers who found themselves at the center of a global controversy have both fought their way to the medal podium.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan each won their respective quarterfinal fights over the weekend, which — due to how Olympic boxing is scored — means they will both leave Paris with a medal. The only question is what color those will be.
"I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female," Khelif told reporters after her match on Saturday, one that started with cheers of support from the crowd and ended with Khelif in tears of joy.
Khelif and Lin came under scrutiny last week after Khelif’s first victory, when it emerged that they had both been disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships for supposedly failing unspecified sex eligibility tests.
Those championships were run by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA), which no longer governs Olympic boxing. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) withdrew its recognition of the body in June 2023 over concerns about its governance, finances and ethics.
The IOC has vigorously defended the boxers and increasingly cast doubt on the reliability of the tests that were used to disqualify them mid-championship last year, just days after Khelif defeated a Russian boxer in an early round.
At a Saturday briefing marking the Games’ halfway point, IOC President Thomas Bach reiterated that both Khelif and Lin were born and raised as women, are described as female on their passports and have competed against women for years — and hadn’t faced questions over their gender until now.
"We will not take part in a politically motivated … cultural war," Bach said. "What is going on in this context, in the social media with all this hate speech, with this aggression and abuse, and fueled by this agenda, is totally unacceptable.”
Khelif, 25, got into boxing as a teenager in part because of her ability to dodge the punches of boys who picked fights with her in soccer, according to a biography from UNICEF, for which she is a national ambassador.
In her first interview since the controversy began, she asked for "all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects."
"It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people," Khelif told SNTV in Arabic on Sunday, describing bullying as "something that harms human dignity."
The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee has said it filed an official complaint with the IOC to protest the online harassment toward Khelif, which it described as "a serious violation of sports ethics and the Olympic Charter by one of the participants in the boxing tournament," without naming names.
Khelif acknowledged that she has been greatly affected by her experience, and also worries about her family members back home (her parents have publicly come to her defense). But she credited the IOC for its response, and hoped for not a silver but a gold lining.
“God willing, this crisis will culminate in a gold medal, and that would be the best response,” said Khelif, who is due to compete in the women’s welterweight semi-final on Tuesday.
Lin, who is headed for redemption after leaving the Tokyo Olympics empty-handed, is set to compete in the featherweight semi-finals on Wednesday.
Olympic officials accuse the IBA of a defamation campaign
The IBA alleged last year that the tests proved both athletes have XY chromosomes, which are typically seen in men. Doubling down last week, it said the athletes "were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors," but declined to elaborate on specifics other than to say the two had not undergone a testosterone exam.
The IOC has dismissed the testing process as arbitrary, and the results illegitimate.
"The testing, the method of testing, the idea of the testing, which happened kind of overnight — none of it is legitimate and this does not deserve any response," IOC spokesperson Mark Adams told reporters on Sunday.
The IOC has also pointed out that it did away with blanket sex testing in 1999 and has no plans to revisit such procedures, which have a long history of being invasive and inaccurate.
In remarks this weekend, Bach accused Russia and the IBA specifically of undertaking "a defamation campaign against France, against the Games, against the IOC" before the Olympics even began.
He said they had made "a number of comments" along those lines, and declined to give them more airtime.
"If you want to have an idea about the credibility of information coming from this not-anymore-recognized international federation, I can only suggest to you look into the comments they and the leaders of this federation have made recently and make your own judgment," Bach said.
Russia has been all but shunned by the Olympic community over its invasion of Ukraine as well as past doping violations. The one-time powerhouse sent just 15 athletes to Paris, all of whom are competing as "neutral."
In a statement issued Friday, the IBA stood by its procedures and slammed Olympic organizers for allowing Lin and Khelif to participate in Paris. It continued to promote the falsehood that they are not women, saying it would "never support any boxing bouts between the genders."
The IBA held a press conference on Monday, with President Umar Kremlev videoing in for a long-winded presentation that ranged from personal attacks against Bach to criticisms of the Paris opening ceremony.
"Today we are witnessing the death of female boxing, the corruption of judges,” he said, according to Reuters. “All of these happens when Mr. Bach (is) president.”
Italian boxer apologizes for kicking off controversy
Further stirring the pot, the IBA has offered a financial reward to the Italian boxer whose defeat set the controversy in motion last week.
Italy’s Angela Carini withdrew 46 seconds into her bout with Khelif, and left the ring in tears. She later told reporters she had never been hit so hard before, and suspected a broken nose.
Within hours, several high-profile figures who have expressed anti-trans views in the past — including author J.K. Rowling, former President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — had weighed in, falsely describing Khelif as a man and fueling questions about her gender.
Carini has since expressed regret, telling the Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday that "all this controversy certainly made me sad" for herself and her opponent, both of whom were just there to fight.
"It wasn’t something I intended to do,” she said, according to several English translations. “Actually, I want to apologize to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke."
Carini said that she has "nothing against Khelif," adding, "On the contrary, if I happened to meet her again I would give her a hug."
Kremlev announced that same day that the IBA would award Carini the "prize money as if she were an Olympic champion" — which amounts to $50,000 for Carini, and $25,000 each for her coach and Italy’s national boxing federation.
The IBA said it would also support Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova, who lost to Lin in the round of 16 on Friday.
The Italian Boxing Federation said in a statement over the weekend that it will not accept the IBA’s prize money, according to the Associated Press — which notes that the Italian boxing federation is one of roughly three dozen Western groups that have left the IBA in the last two years to form World Boxing, the governing body that hopes to earn regulatory power over future Games.
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