From our Olympics correspondent in Paris – Algerian welterweight boxer Imane Khelif beat Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori by a unanimous decision in the quarter-finals in the North Paris Arena on Friday night after facing days of online abuse following accusations that the 25-year-old fighter is secretly a man. It’s a bittersweet victory for Khelif, who continues to endure rampant speculation about whether she and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting – neither of whom has ever identified as anything other than a woman – should be allowed to step back into the ring.
The fight lasted just 46 seconds, but the blows haven't stopped. Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has been the target of a wave of online abuse after her first fight in the Paris Olympics on Thursday came to an abrupt end in the first round, her opponent unwilling – or unable – to continue.
Her fellow welterweight, Italy's Angela Carini, withdrew from the fight after a series of heavy blows pushed her back into her corner and down onto her knees. Speaking after the fight, tears still running down her face, she said she'd never been hit as hard in her life. For Khelif's detractors, her shock victory has a simple explanation: she's a man.
The controversy isn't new. Khelif was disqualified from last year’s boxing world championships along with Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-Ting by the International Boxing Association (IBA), which announced that both athletes had failed an unspecified test that ruled them ineligible to compete in the women’s category. Khelif had previously represented Algeria in the Tokyo Olympics, where she was eliminated in the quarter-finals.
The IBA this week clarified that the tests had not been related to testosterone levels, although it refused to say what kind of tests they had been, citing privacy reasons. Neither woman identifies as transgender, and Khelif’s family maintains that she was born and raised a woman.
IBA president Umar Kremlev told Russian state-owned media last year that a DNA test had revealed the athletes had both X and Y chromosomes. The IBA has been banned from any involvement with the Games since 2019 following repeated allegations of financial mismanagement.
Speaking on the morning of the fight, International Olympics Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach suggested that the allegations against the two women were part of a broader campaign by the Russian-led boxing association to tarnish the Games’ image. Just 15 Russian athletes are competing in the Paris Olympics, with competitors from Russia and Belarus banned from entering the Games under their national flags following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Let’s be very clear here: we are talking about women’s boxing,” Bach said. “We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised a woman, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women. And this is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.”
There is now. Influential right-wing figures including former US president Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have both publicly accused Khelif of being a man, saying she had no place in women’s sports. Images of Carini, stricken and sobbing, have been widely posted across social media, often with captions accusing the IOC of facilitating male violence against women.
The day before her fight in the women's 66kg quarter finals on Saturday evening, Khelif’s opponent, Hungarian boxer Anna Luca Hamori, herself shared an image on Instagram that spread across the internet in the wake of the Algerian fighter’s victory over Carini. Beneath the Olympic rings, two boxers face one another. On the left is a woman dressed in blue, waifish and fine-boned, with unbound brown hair and a wasp-thin waist.
On the right is a monster. Obviously male, black-skinned and swollen with muscles, the beast bares his teeth and looms over the woman, his blunt head crowned with twisting demonic horns. He’s wearing red trunks, the same colour trunks that Khelif wore when she fought the Italian welterweight. Hamori later deleted the post.
So perhaps it is not surprising when Saturday comes that the press stands are packed and the crowd is screaming Khelif’s name well before the Algerian fighter enters the ring in the North Paris Arena. The crescent moon and star of the Algerian flag is everywhere – Khelif’s supporters have filled the stadium to cheer their champion on.
Rahmouna, a former English teacher, said that she felt she had no other choice than to show her support for the Algerian welterweight.
“I came from Lille to support Imane, it wasn’t planned,” she said. “Even though tickets were going fast, we saw that it was important for us to be there for Imane because of the social media harassment that she suffered.”
She said that she had been shocked by the wave of online abuse that had been directed at Khelif.
“It’s not normal, it’s not fair, it’s not objective, because the Olympic Committee confirmed that Imane is not transgender,” she said. “Imane is a woman, she was born a woman, she grew up as a woman, it’s been confirmed by her family and by the people around her. It’s not the first time that she’s fought in an international competition, but it’s the first time that we’ve heard this kind of aberrant treatment.”
All through the previous fight, where Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng beat defending champion Busenav Surmeneli in a split decision, the crowd has been shouting its support for Algeria in anticipation of the fight to come. Now, as their champion enters the ring, the chant changes, and it’s Imane’s name that echoes. Her black hair tied in tight braids against her head, she steps through the ropes.
She’s in an impossible position. If she wins, she will face another frenzy of social media slander, with public figures accusing her of being a man who beats women for sport. If she loses, the same people will likely never let her forget it.
Hamori is booed on her way to the ring, her own blonde hair pulled back beneath a black bandana. Facing each other, there’s not much between them – Khelif is maybe a little taller, a little leaner. They brush gloves and the fight begins.
The first two rounds go comfortably to Khelif, who drives Hamori back time and time again with unerring jabs. The third round is uglier – both fighters throw themselves into staggering grapples, leaning against one another like drunks, each one bringing their opponent down to the mat in their turn. The final bell sounds, and the judges are unanimous – Khelif has won the fight. No matter what happens in her next match, she’ll be leaving Paris with a medal.
The two boxers shake hands and Khelif bounds around the ring, buoyed by the clamour. Then something changes. She drops to her knees and slams a fist down on the mat over and over before striding into her coach’s arms. She’s sobbing.
The press room is mayhem. Journalists crawl over one another to get within shouting distance of the exhausted athletes, stumbling over the metal barriers in the crowd. Imane speaks to Algerian state media and walks out of the room without another word, still visibly upset. The few words she'd spoken had been fighting ones.
"It's a battle, it's for my dignity," she said.
Hamori stays, telling the increasingly cramped journalists that it was a good fight.
“This was a hard fight, but I think I got to do everything I wanted for the fight ... I’m so proud of myself and I’m so grateful to be here.”
It’s not what they want to hear. They just have one question: Was it a fair fight? Hungary’s IOC representative Balazs Furjes is enigmatic, saying that Hamori had fought “very bravely”.
“We are one hundred percent convinced, one hundred percent convinced, that the International Olympic Committee will make the right decisions,” he said.
Outside, the Algerian supporters are piled dozens deep waiting for Khelif. When security tells them she won’t be leaving the stadium this way, their faces fall. A delirious celebration breaks out on the way back to the train station. Rahmouna is grinning, elated at Khelif’s success.
“She proved that she doesn’t just have the body of an athlete, she has the spirit of an athlete as well – she proved that today,” she said. “We cried, we had so many emotions when we saw her win the fight. At the end of the day it’s humanity that has won, it’s human values that have won and it’s sport that has won today.”
