Boxer Khelif not competing in latest tournament: organizers

Algeria’s Imane Khelif celebrates after defeating China’s Yang Liu in their women’s 66 kg final boxing match at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, in Paris, France. — Photo by Associated Press

Algerian Olympic champion boxer Imane Khelif, who is at the centre of a row over gender eligibility, will not compete in this week’s tournament in The Netherlands, organizers said Thursday.

Dirk Renders, spokesman for the Eindhoven Box Cup, confirmed to AFP the boxer would not be taking part, adding: “The decision of her exclusion is up to World Boxing.”

World Boxing has introduced mandatory gender testing for competitors over 18 and had informed the Algerian federation Khelif would have to undergo the test to compete in Eindhoven this week.

Under the new policy, all athletes in World Boxing-sanctioned competitions need to take a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test, to determine what sex they were at birth.

The PCR test, conducted via a nasal or mouth swab, detects specific genetic material — in this case the SRY gene — that reveals the presence of the Y chromosome, an indicator of biological gender.

The controversy around Khelif, who won gold in the women’s welterweight class in Paris, was one of the stories of the Games.

The scandal erupted when Khelif defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in 46 seconds in her opening bout, the Italian reduced to tears after suffered a badly hurt nose.

Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, then found themselves at the center of a gender row that attracted comments from US President Donald Trump and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.

READ: World Boxing introducing gender tests for all boxers, targets Khelif

Both boxers had been disqualified from the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) 2023 world championships after the organization said they had failed gender eligibility tests.

But the International Olympic Committee later stripped the IBA of its right to organize the boxing in Paris over financial, governance, and ethical concerns.

The IOC allowed them both to compete in Paris saying they had been victims of “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA.”

“The two female athletes mentioned by the IBA are not transgender athletes,” the IOC said in a statement to AFP in February.

“They were born as women, were raised as women, and have competed in the women’s category for their entire boxing careers,” said the IOC.

World Boxing will organize the boxing competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after the IOC granted it provisional recognition.

‘Born a woman’

Khelif is a role model to many in Algeria and received strong support from authorities and fans during the controversy in Paris.

After winning Gold, she said the medal was the best response to her critics.

“I am fully qualified to take part. I am a woman like any other. I was born a woman, lived a woman and competed as a woman,” she said.

The row rumbled on well beyond Paris, with the IBA saying in February it would sue the IOC for clearing Khelif to box at the Games.

Khelif jabbed back that the accusations were “false and offensive,” adding: “This is a matter that concerns not just me but the broader principles of fairness and due process in sport.”

She has vowed to take her own legal action to refute the accusations.

“I am not going anywhere. I will fight in the ring, I will fight in the courts and I will fight in the public eye until the truth is undeniable,” she said.

World Boxing, which took over governance of the sport from the IBA, was forced into an embarrassing climbdown of its own earlier this week.

It had initially named Khelif in its statement announcing the new testing policy but then rowed back.

“The president of World Boxing does not think it was correct to have named a specific athlete” in the statement.

The association wrote to the Algerian boxing authorities to apologize and acknowledge that “greater effort should have been made to avoid linking the policy to any individual.” /das