PARIS: Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has won a gold medal Friday at the Paris Olympics, emerging a champion from a tumultuous run at the Games where she endured intense scrutiny in the ring and online abuse from around the world over misconceptions about her womanhood.
Khelif beat Yang Liu of China 5:0 in the final of the women’s welterweight division, wrapping up the best series of fights of her boxing career with a victory at Roland Garros, where crowds chanted her name, waved Algerian flags and roared every time she landed a punch.
After her unanimous win, Khelif jumped into her coaches' arms, one of them putting her on his shoulders and carrying her around the arena in a victory lap as she pumped her fists and grabbed an Algerian flag from someone in the crowd.
“For eight years, this has been my dream, and I’m now the Olympic champion and gold medallist,” Khelif said through an interpreter. Asked about the scrutiny, she told reporters: “That also gives my success a special taste because of those attacks.”
“We are in the Olympics to perform as athletes, and I hope that we will not see any similar attacks in future Olympics,” she said.
Fans have embraced Khelif in Paris even as she faced an extraordinary amount of scrutiny from world leaders, major celebrities and others who have questioned her eligibility or falsely claimed she was a man. It has thrust her into a larger divide over changing attitudes toward gender identity and regulations in sports.
It stems from the Russian-dominated International Boxing Association’s decision to disqualify Khelif and fellow two-time Olympian Li Yu-ting of Taiwan from last year’s world championships, claiming both failed an eligibility test for women’s competition.
The International Olympic Committee took the unprecedented step last year of permanently banning the IBA from the Olympics following concerns about its governance, competitive fairness and financial transparency. The IOC has called the arbitrary sex tests that the sport’s governing body imposed on the two boxers irretrievably flawed.
[caption id="attachment_1101575" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Algeria's Imane Khelif, right, fights China's Yang Liu in their women's 66 kg final boxing match at the Olympics, Friday, in Paris, France. - AP PHOTO[/caption]
The IOC has repeatedly reaffirmed the two boxers’ right to compete in Paris, with President Thomas Bach personally defending Khelif and Lin while calling the criticism “hate speech.”
“We have two boxers who are born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman and have competed for many years as women,” Bach said.
That hasn’t stopped the international outcry tied to misconceptions around the fighters that has been amplified by Russian disinformation networks. It also hasn’t slowed two boxers who have performed at the highest levels of their careers while under the spotlight’s glare.
Khelif was completely dominant in Paris at a level she had never reached before: She won every round on every judge's scorecard in each
