PARIS – In a unanimous decision, Algeria’s Imane Khelif defeated China’s Liu Yang Friday night at Roland Garros Stadium to win women’s Olympic under-66 kilogram boxing gold, a seemingly inevitable turn in the controversy that has shaken the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Saluting as the decision was read, Khelif next danced around the ring and mugged for photos before leaping into her corner in exultation. Carrying the Algerian flag over her head, she was carried out of the arena on the shoulders of one of her cornermen. “Imane! Imane!” roared the crowd.
Khelif won every round with all five judges. Yang, the 2023 world champion, had no answer for Khelif’s size, speed and jab.
Imane Khelif, left, with a mock salute as the announcer and referee declare victory for the red corner // AFP / Getty Images
Khelif in victory with the Algerian flag // AFP / Getty Images
“It is my dream,” Khelif, Algeria’s first female gold medalist in boxing, told the BBC. “I am very happy. It is fantastic. Amazing.
“Eight years of work, no sleep. I want to thank all of the people in Algeria.
“I am very happy for my performance. I am a strong woman.”
The fight closed one chapter in the controversy even as one more remains. Yu Ting Lin of Chinese Taipei fights Saturday night against Poland’s Julia Szeremeta for women’s under-57 gold.
Khelif and Lin have, over the run of the Paris Games, found themselves at the center of a global storm stemming from lab tests taken at the 2022 and 2023 International Boxing Assn. women’s world championships – and then, at the 2023 tournament, an IBA decision to disqualify them both.
The furor in Paris eruped after Khelif, in an early-round fight, hit Italy’s Angela Carini with two punches; 46 seconds in, Carini quit, saying it hurt too much.
On Friday afternoon, in his closing news conference, IOC president Thomas Bach called the Games a “love story” and a “celebration coming from the heart,” and indeed they surely will be remembered for the iconic images of, for instance, the Eiffel Tower looming over beach volleyball.
At the same time, the question is whether the controversy at these Games can serve as a catalyst for constructive change – accelerating a focus on rules changes already implemented or under study in some number of international federations, a debate sparked in key measure by South Africa’s Caster Semenya and perhaps accelerated by the women’s 800 in track and field at the Rio 2016 Games, which Semenya won.
The issue is not as Bach sought to depict it Friday – who is a woman?
Rather, it’s what rules does a sport seek to apply in deciding who gets to compete in the women’s category?
Those are two different things.
The matter is particularly acute in boxing, where there is a not-inconsiderable risk of injury, because – this is first-year law student stuff – organizers have a duty of care to the athletes.
In this instance, IBA put the IOC on notice in a June 5, 2023, letter that there was something amiss in the Khelif and Lin files. More first-year law student stuff, and if you think about it, this only makes common sense: it is reasonably foreseeable that in boxing, someone might get seriously hurt. The duty is to make sure they don’t. Right?
When and why did this controversy erupt? Carini, two punches and 46 seconds, stop, it hurts.
The IOC expelled IBA from the Olympic ecosystem in June 2023. The IOC is running the Olympic boxing tournament at these Games. The IOC opted to base eligibility on an athlete’s passport.
The reasonably foreseeable risk of someone getting badly hurt is point-blank why events here must impel anyone and everyone with an interest in fair play to seek, and as soon as possible, to come to working eligibility rules for women’s boxing more on target than an athlete’s passport.
Other leading international sports federations – World Athletics, World Aquatics, World Rugby – have developed eligibility rules for the women’s category.
IBA, to be clear, has rules, and it’s far from clear why – politics? – those rules were not deemed appropriate for the Olympics.
Boxing, if it’s going to be on the Olympic program in 2028 in Los Angeles, and the IOC has said it’s not going to run it, needs rules. A rival, World Boxing, has emerged, but it’s far from clear enough federations will switch away from IBA.
A significant undercurrent to what has happened here is the IOC’s attempt to swat away evidence of the 2022 and 2023 Khelif and Lin lab tests as unreliable – simply on the grounds that they come via IBA events.
Facts are facts, though, and facts are stubborn things.
—
Both Khelif and Lin submitted to chromosome tests at the May 2022 Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul and again at the March 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi. Referring to the second tests, the IBA said in a statement issued earlier this week, “The findings were absolutely identical to the first results.”
The New Delhi test results for each say “chromosome analysis reveals Male karyotype” – with a depiction of XY chromosomes. The lab is CAP-certified and ISO-certified.
3 Wire Sports has seen these tests.
Upon being notified of these tests, the IBA has said, it disqualified both athletes from the 2023 championships.
It then re-did its rules to make plain that “boxers will compete against boxers of the same gender, meaning Women vs. Women …” It defined “Women/Female/Girl” as “an individual with chromosome XX” and said boxers could be asked to take a “targeted gender test” to confirm XX status.
Both athletes were afforded the chance to appeal the DQs to the Swiss-based Court of Appeal. Lin did not. Khelif did but then opted last July not to pursue the matter. The IBA position is that, with the CAS cases over and done, neither – if IBA had been running this tournament – would have been eligible in the first instance.
—
This was Bach at the Friday news conference:
“We had so-called sex tests until 1999. Then science has told us that they are not reliable any more. It does not work anymore as it used to work with regard to the chromosomes and with regard to other measurements. And we were also that these kinds of tests can be against human rights because they are too intrusive. The new system has been developed in great agreement with everybody and I think this is since 1999 or 2000 that this system is working and therefore our decision is very clear. Women must be allowed to take part in women’s competitions. The two are women.”
Asked if the matter was one of inclusion, the president said:
“This is not a question of inclusion. This has never played a role in all of this. This is a question of justice. Women have the right to participate in women’s participation.
“… It is not as easy as some may in this cultural war – may now want to portray it, the XX or the XY is the clear distinction between men and women. This is scientifically not true anymore. Therefore, these two are women and they have the right to participate in women’s competition. This has nothing to do with inclusion in any way.”
—
OK, but – just to take as an example, and at some length, World Aquatics.
Its eligibility policy, which came into effect in June 2022, declares flat-out in the first sentence under Section E, “The Policy Objective”:
“World Aquatics is committed to the inclusion of all Aquatics athletes from all countries in the sport, subject to the eligibility requirements set out in this Policy.”
So – inclusion.
Then, in one of the following paragraphs, it asserts the rules are designed to “maintain the separation of Aquatic sports into men’s and women’s categories according to scientifically grounded, sex-based criteria.”
It further says those who identify as, say, transgender or 46 XY DSD should have opportunities to compete in the category – what’s next is all the same sentence but broken up here, emphasis mine, to make the rule easier to read -- that 1/ “reflects their gender identity” 2/ “based on eligibility criteria that are consistent with and do not undermine” 3/ “World Aquatics’ goals for the women’s category.”
The throughline – protect the women’s category.
DSD means differences of sex development, an umbrella term for a group of conditions where someone’s chromosomes don’t fit the usual expectations; 46 XY DSD, per the policy, refers to a kind of DSD “affecting athletes with testes.” Without getting too complicated, this usually means internal testes.
The policy then explicitly says – Section F, point 2, subsection a: “All athletes must certify their chromosomal sex with their Member Federation in order to be eligible” and failing to do so, or offering a fake certificate, “will render the athlete ineligible.”
It says, Section F, point 2, subsection c, World Aquatics “reserves the right to include a chromosomal sex screen in its anti-doping protocol to confirm such certification.”
In section D, it defines “female” to mean “possession of XX chromosomes and (in the absence of medical intervention) ovaries and increased circulating estrogen and progesterone starting at puberty.”
This policy reads considerably like the IBA rule, no?
It defines male as XY and increased testosterone at puberty. It further defines male to include “athletes with 46 XY DSD.”
A key passage, Section F, point 4: “female” athletes, regardless of their “legal gender, gender identity, or gender expression,” are eligible for the female category – with the caveat, subsection b, athletes with 46 XY DSD are eligible for the female category only if they have not gone through male puberty.
Section G: “Classifying athletes on the basis of sex is necessary to meet World Aquatics’ goals for female Aquatics athletes and the women’s competition category.”
Note: it says the classification is based on “sex.”
That word means “natural biological differences between females and males, including chromosomes, sex organs and endogenous hormonal profiles.” Endogenous is a fancy word that means ‘naturally occurring.’ To reiterate, a female person confirms her “sex,” per the policy, via XX chromosomes.
Not, to reiterate, via “legal gender,” which is something one might provide by showing a passport, or “gender identity,” or “gender expression.”
Chris Roberts, the IBA chief executive, said Friday in a telephone interview, referring to Khelif and Lin, “There should be a call for these two athletes – they owe it to their peer group, their opponents, the female boxing community, they should be saying, IBA, release the [2022 and 2023] results or we will go to a WADA/ITA-recognized lab and do the tests again.
“I call for these two to stand up and be counted,” he said, adding, “It makes perfect sense: stand up and be counted. That would certainly clear all these issues up for them.”