Imane Khelif became the Olympic champion by unanimous decision of the judges. The Algerian woman, whose gender identity was questioned by the International Boxing Federation, defeated China’s Liu Yang in the fight for the gold. After the fight, both players embraced each other warmly.
There was a lot of buzz around Khalifa when the International Boxing Federation – the federation that was stripped of the right to organize Olympic qualifications by the International Olympic Committee – announced at the start of the Games that Algerian and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (whom Julia Zeremeta will fight in tomorrow’s fight) had failed sex tests conducted a year earlier during the world championships. What were these tests? How were they conducted? What was the result? But the federation has not said anything, and its senior figures are tangled in their testimonies, unable to identify the common denominator.
The IOC, for its part, maintains that Khalif met all the requirements to compete with other women in the boxing tournament it organized, and therefore entered the competition. However, there is still controversy, as Italy’s Angela Carini abandoned the fight after the first punch (and later apologized for the controversy she caused), and other competitors have shown an “X” after their fights with Khalif, likely a reference to XX chromosomes – those naturally present in women.
But today, nothing of the sort happened, and although Khalif won the fight with a huge advantage, scoring 30:27 on all the judges’ cards, China’s Liu Yang first congratulated her, then they both hugged, and finally Iman raised her opponent’s hand, paying her respects for the fight. In return, Khalif herself was honored from the stands by a large group of Algerian fans – or neutral fans who simply wanted to support her. Iman is, of course, the first Algerian woman to achieve this success.
I missed it. Newspeak
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