Imane Khelif, 25, won Olympic gold in women’s boxing on Friday in Paris against Chinese world champion Yang Liu.
The victory comes a year after the Khelif’s disqualification of the Women’s World Championships, after failing the test of International Boxing Association (IBA) Gender Eligibilityand in the middle of a controversy which has overshadowed the boxing competition in Paris for the same reason.
“It’s my dream. I’m very happy. It’s fantastic. Unbelievable. I’m very happy with my performance. Eight years of work, without sleep. I want to thank all the people of Algeria,” Khelif told the BBC.
When the result was confirmed, rival Yang raised Khelif’s arm in the air, showing his appreciation, in stark contrast to the scenes seen in Khelif’s opening fight against the Italian. Angela Cariniwhich once again sparked controversy over their gender.
“That also gives my victory a special flavour because of those attacks. We are at the Olympics to behave like athletes, I hope we won’t see any similar attacks in the future,” the boxer added to the press.
The young boxer was accompanied in the ring by a predominantly Algerian crowd waving green, white and red flags.
Imane Khelif’s path to reach the Paris Olympics It was not easy or quick. Born in a rural village in western Algeria, the boxer has had to face prejudices, the bullying and lack of resources.
But this is not the first time that Imane Khelif has competed in the Olympics. She also did it in Tokyo 2020where she was defeated. However, this year, Khelif prevailed in Paris, demonstrating a high level by winning each round in each of his previous three fights.
This is the story of the young boxer who has made history by becoming the first algerian in winning the gold medal in women’s boxing.
How he started boxing
Imane Khelif was born in 1999 in the province of Tiaretin Algeria.
During his childhood and adolescence, he stood out for his sporting abilities – especially in football – in a conservative rural town, where sport was reserved for men.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – of which she is an ambassador – the children around her “fought with her” because they felt “threatened”.
She has said that this stage of her life was “really difficult”, and that, without ever imagining it, led her to practice boxing almost as a method of defense.
But this was even more challenging.
Her father, who worked in the Sahara Desert, was strongly opposed: boxing, he thought, was not for girls.
Despite this, and thanks to the motivation of her school teachers, Imane Khelif – who at the time was 16 years old– decided to start training.
And that’s how he fell in love with boxing.
Financial difficulties
However, during this period he had to face great obstacles.
In order to be able to practice the sport, I had to travel every week to the next town, located 10 kilometers from his home.
This meant a bus fare that neither she nor her mother could afford.
According to Unicef, Khelif sold everything from bread to objects he picked up on the street and scrap metal to raise the money. His mother, meanwhile, sold couscous.
In an interview with the channel Algeria In a video taken before the Paris Games, which was covered by various media, the boxer said that “the hardest thing” was the journeys to train and all the financial stress it caused her.
“I had to do all kinds of things to be able to continue practicing this sport,” he said.
But nothing stopped her.
After long days of training, he began to stand out little by little until in 2018, at the age of 19, he achieved the position 17 at the World Championships in New Delhi.
And then he represented Algeria at the 2019 World Championships in Russia, where he placed first. position 33after being eliminated in the first round.
In 2020, he qualified for the Tokyo Olympicswhere she represented her country in the lightweight event, but was defeated in the quarter-finals.
In 2022, she continued to advance her career, becoming the first Algerian female boxer to reach the final of the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championship. But he couldn’t beat the Irish Amy Broadhurst.
2023 Disqualification
The controversy over her gender dates back to 2023, when she was disqualified from the Women’s World Championships in India, after the International Boxing Association (IBA) determined that, after testing, he “did not meet the eligibility criteria.”
The IBA, headed by the Russian Umar Kremlev, It has not been recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2019, citing governance problems.
Although the IBA did not publicly release the results of those tests last year, the IOC said they were “high levels of testosterone”.
Following this, comments emerged from IBA President Umar Kremlev, who suggested that Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting, also disqualified, had no XX chromosomes of the female biological sex, but XY of the male.
The IBA, however, never produced the evidence and has now said that its details “they are confidential” but which show that supposedly both athletes “had competitive advantages over other contenders.”
After the IBA’s decision in 2023, the boxer was surprised.
“I frequently suffered bullying because of my appearance, and I resisted and continued despite everything. Today those arguments were successful and I am in “shock”he told the Algerian media Koora.
Despite what happened last year, Imane Khelif continued training and qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games.
“I started with nothing and now I have everything,” she said before arriving in Paris in an interview with Unicef.
She also clarified that her father now supports her, despite his resistance a few years ago. “My parents come to support me. They are my biggest fans,” she said.
But this year, the controversy broke out again when he had to compete in the first fight of the Games with the Italian Angela Carini, who was defeated after withdrawing just 46 seconds after the start, saying she had to “preserve” her life.
The IOC said all athletes participating in the Olympic boxing tournament “comply with the eligibility and registration rules of the competition, as well as with all applicable medical regulations“.
Even on several occasions, the IOC spokesman, Mark Adamshas argued that ““This is not a transgender issue.”
“The Algerian boxer was born a woman, was registered as a woman, lived her life as a woman, boxed as a woman and has a female passport,” Adams said.
The road to gold
This Friday, Khelif beat Yang.
The Algerian, whose best previous result was a World silver medal in 2022followed a path of great success, with convincing victories and unanimous decisions, until reaching the gold in Paris.
This was expected to be a tougher fight, given that Yang represents one of the highest-level opponents in the world, but Friday’s fight turned out to be another resounding victory.
However, many of his opponents have expressed dissatisfaction with his participation, indicating a level of discontent behind the scenes.
While Carini said immediately after his loss that he was “not okay,” he later apologized for how he handled himself after the fight.
Before the next round, rival Anna Luca Hamori from Hungary had said that “[su participación] was not good for boxing,” while their boxing federation said they were “strongly opposed” to Lin and Khelif’s participation in Paris 2024.
After the fight, Hamori wished Khelif good luck.
Neither his semi-final opponent, Janjaem Suwannapheng, nor the Thai boxing team made any direct comment on the controversy, although Suwannapheng said after the fight: “She is a woman, but very strong”.
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