Imane Khelif gender controversy: Boxing chief hits out at Olympics Committee as ex-elite athletes ask for her removal

The gender identity controversy surrounding Imane Khelif, gold medallist from Paris Olympics 2024, refuses to die down and has been reignited after a leaked medical report that claimed the Algerian boxer has no uterus or ovaries, but possess internal testes and ‘micropenis’ resembling an enlarged clitoris. The calls for Imane Khelif to be stripped of her gold medal have been growing since the medical report was accessed by the French magazine Le Correspondant.

Meanwhile, the suspended International Boxing Association (IBA), which banned Imane Khelif for failing a chromosome test in 2023, has hit back at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and President Thomas Bach for “putting a man against a woman” in a boxing ring.

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IBA hits at IOC over Khelif gennder row

IBA had suspended Imane Khelif during the 2023 World Boxing Championship in New Delhi after she allegedly failed a gender identity test. The results, however, were not made public.

The IOC has since banned the IBA over governance and financial issues. The IOC also allowed Imane Khelif to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympics where she won the 66kg gold in the female division.

IBA President Umar Kremlev in a press statement asked IOC and President Bach to “kneel and apologise” to the women boxers who have been “beaten and abused” by Imane Khelif.

“Everyone already knows the news. The International Olympic Committee has violated all sports rules by putting a man against a woman," IBA President Umar Kremlev said. “Tests have again confirmed that Imane Khelif is indeed a man. Today, as the President of the International Boxing Association, which upholds gender equality and protects both women’s and men’s boxing, I demand that Thomas Bach and his team both verbally and in writing, apologizse to the global boxing community.

“Thomas Bach himself bears direct responsibility for this, as he personally lobbied for this to happen – for men to compete against women. On behalf of all boxers in the world, I demand them to kneel and apologise to the boxing community and to those girls who have been beaten and abused. Thomas Bach, I am now waiting, as is everyone in IBA, for your official apology.”

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Navratilova and Davies protest against Khelif

IBA is not the only entity leading the protests against Imane Khelif participating in female events. Former tennis legend Martina Navratilova has asked for the 25-year-old to be excluded from the female events.

“Imane might have been raised as a woman but Imane is a biological male and should not have been allowed to box at the Olympics,” she wrote on X.

Former Olympics silver medallist and Great Britain’s swimming great Sharron Davies has termed the IOC’s act of making Imane Khelif fight in the female event as “irresponsible & criminal”. She also demanded a female category that is free from “males”.

“It is not ‘Kind’ to allow males to box females. It’s deluded, insane, irresponsible & criminally negligent @IOCThomasBach,” she wrote on X.

The gender controversy surrounding Imane Khelif first emerged during the Paris Olympics when she defeated Italy’s Angela Crarini in just 46 seconds in a round of 16 fight. The quick-fire win and her suspension by IBA in 2023 led to massive online protests as popular names from across the globe including Elon Musk asked for her elimination from the Games.

The IOC, however, threw its weight behind Imane Khelif as she was eligible for the Olympics as per current rules which identify the gender of an athlete on the basis of the gender assigned to them on their passports. The IOC also called out IBA’s gender eligibility test as illegitimate.

“Those tests are not legitimate tests. The tests themselves, the process of the tests, the ad hoc nature of the tests are not legitimate,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said earlier this year.

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Khelif’s medical report details

Imane Khelif, who won the gold by beating China’s Yang Liu in the 66kg final, also hit back at her critics after the end of the Games, saying that she’s a “woman like any other woman”.

“As for whether I qualify or not, whether I am a woman or not, I have made many statements in the media,” she said. “I am fully qualified to take part in this competition. I’m a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived as a woman, I competed as a woman, there’s no doubt about that.”

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The controversy erupted again this month after a medical report was leaked online. The medical report was reportedly created in 2023 by medical experts from Paris and Algeria after running tests on Imane Khelif. The report claims that Imane Khelif’s MRI shows that she has no uterus and “gonads (testicles) in the inguinal canals, a blind vagina, and a micropenis in the form of a clitoris”.

The report also stated that the Algerian boxer has an XY karyotype (typical of men) and a “typical male testosterone level of 14.7”.