A boxer at the centre of the gender eligibility storm at the Paris Olympics wrote her name on the floor of the ring on Saturday, and burst into tears after securing an Olympic medal.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif was overwhelmed with emotion and repeatedly slammed the floor of the ring with her hands, having beaten the Hungarian fighter Luca Anna Hamori convincingly in the quarter-final of the 66kg category. After the fight, Hamori congratulated her opponent and wished her luck for the remainder of the competition. Asked about the controversy, she said: “I don’t care.”
The 25-year-old Khelif is now guaranteed Algeria’s first boxing medal since 2000, after winning the three-round bout 5-0 by unanimous decision, with the prospect of the gold medal in her sights. She faces Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng in the semi-finals on 6 August.
Khelif and the Chinese Taipei fighter Lin Yu-ting have come under intense scrutiny at these Games. Both fighters competed without incident at Tokyo 2020, but were disqualified from last year’s world championships at a late stage by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for failing to meet its gender eligibility criteria. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has cast doubts on the tests taken, calling the disqualifications “arbitrary”, while the IOC president Thomas Bach said the boxers had been subjected to “hate speech”.