A boxer deemed a ‘biological male’ today won against an Italian woman in one of the most controversial Olympic bouts ever.
The fight took 46 seconds and her Italian opponent threw her helmet onto the floor as the fight was abandoned.
She refused the handshake, fell to the canvas sobbing as the emotional Italian broke down in tears after just two punches.
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, 25, fought Italy’s Angela Carini, 25 despite being banned from a major boxing contest before the Olympics.
After the match was stopped, the referee raised Khelif’s hand in the air. But a visibly furious Carini yanked her hand away from the fight official before exiting the ring without shaking her opponent’s hand.
Ignoring the Algerian, the Italian fighter then dropped to her knees and wept.
It was unclear immediately whether the Italian had stopped the fight as a protest against her opponent, or felt that the punches she received were too hard.
Khelif was thrown out of last year’s world championships after failing testosterone tests carried out to establish gender qualification.
But despite her gender test problems, she was admitted to the Olympics amid a huge furore.
Olympics officials at Paris 2024 have accepted her as a female and state so in her official games biography.
Another female boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan was also disqualified from the 2023 women’s boxing world championships for failing a gender eligibility test.
Former world featherweight champion Barry McGuigan – now president of the Professional Boxing Association – said it was `shocking’ and `pathetic’ decision to allow ‘a man’ to fight women.
Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) has said after a series of DNA-tests the association ‘uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretended to be women.
Kremlev claimed that the tests ‘proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the sports events.’
Italy’s sports minister Andrea Abodi raised concerns about Khelif competing , but Angela Carini was on record as saying that ‘respect’ of her opponents was her mantra.
She said: ‘Boxing is a sport that teaches you to have respect for your opponent. It can be a weapon in life, but only for defence. It cannot and must not become an abuse. Like any sport, it can instead become a vehicle for venting anger and pain.’
Algeria’s Olympic Committee condemned as ‘baseless’ the attacks on their boxer after questions were raised over her participation at the Paris Olympics.
But Khelif, who competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, only fell into controversy after failing the tests last year in New Delhi.
She received resounding applause from staunch Algerian supporters as she entered the ring, but there were several boos.
At 5.10 and two inches taller than her police officer opponent, Khelif showed off her power with a series of powerful punches early in the three round contest.
But it was over in less than a minute.
The clash comes amid a gender storm at the Olympics over ‘biologically male’ fighters competing in the female divisions.
IOC bosses overseeing the Olympics in Paris said Khelif met the eligibility criteria to compete – despite concerns of the boxer’s biological sex.