By Gura Garcia
05 Aug 2024, 08:49 AM EDT
Imane Khelif has become, unfortunately and to her regretthe athlete who has all eyes on her at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The controversial and complete controversy over her sex has placed her in the eye of the storm of all kinds of comments that have cost her much displeasure and many tears of helplessness and sadness.
Luckily for her, she has the support of her people, who They do not hesitate for a moment to defend her and in this case, Mr. Omar Khelif, her father, has made the decision to break the silence to stand up for his daughter.
In defense of his daughter, he spoke sincerely
“My daughter is a girl. She was raised as a girl. She is a strong girl.”I have raised her to work and be brave,” the worker explained in the family living room of a poor rural village located 10 km from Tiaret, a city about 300 km southwest of Algiers that has been affected by a shortage of drinking water in recent months.
Imane Khelif’s father defends his daughter:
“My daughter is a woman, we have all the evidence, including her birth certificate.
My daughter was just stronger than the Italian boxer. She works very hard. ” pic.twitter.com/SB1FYQNOU7
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) August 3, 2024
On Saturday, Imane Khelif managed to defeat the Hungarian Luca Anna Hamori (-66kg) in the quarter-finals of the women’s boxing event, which guaranteed her at least a bronze medal and Algeria’s first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Two days earlier, according to her father, Imane had defeated She beat her Italian rival Angela Carini in the round of 16, simply “because (her) daughter was stronger.” Imane “really wants to work and train,” stressed Khelif, a 49-year-old unemployed welder.
“Since she was little, her passion has been sport. In all other things sports, I was always in the lead, in athletics and in football,” said the father.
A struggle since childhood and with a lot of conviction and patience
In addition to the prejudices she had to fight against, As a young man, he was forced to find every means to finance his travels from his small village to Tiaret and then to the capital, Algiers, to the point that as a teenager he had to sell scrap metal and his mother sold home-made couscous.
The Olympics allowed a biological man, Imane Khelif, to fight as a woman despite her XY chromosomes. The end result?
“I have never been hit so hard in my life.”
Italian Olympian Angela Carini lasted 46 seconds before quitting due to how painful it was. It’s just shameful that… pic.twitter.com/OWhKggM7qe
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 1, 2024
“Imane is an example of an Algerian woman. She is one of the heroines of Algeria. God willing, he will honour us with a gold medal and raise the national (Algerian) flag in Paris,” he added, stressing that this has been his “sole objective from the beginning.”
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