Boxer Imane Khelif hit back at Donald Trump just hours before Election Day over a campaign advert that slammed her medal-winning performance.
The Olympic champion’s attorney, Nabil Boudi, blasted the former president for ‘attacking’ his client and ‘exposing her to yet another campaign of cyber harassment’.
‘This attitude is not worthy of a presidential candidate in a country like the United States,’ Boudi wrote on X/Twitter on Monday afternoon.
The campaign ad in question claims ‘everything we cared about fell apart’ under the Biden-Harris administration, while showing Khelif’s hand being raised at the Olympics as an apparent example of societal decay.
The narrator then says: ‘Men can beat up women and win medals’, referencing questions over Khelif’s eligibility to compete as a woman.
DailyMail.com has contacted Trump’s office for comment on Boudi’s statement.
Khelif, 25, was born a woman – but she was disqualified from the 2023 world championships for failing unspecified eligibility tests for women’s competition from the now-banned International Boxing Association.
A report claiming she is a biological man was leaked today – though it is unclear whether the study is legitimate.
The report was put together in 2023 via collaboration between French and Algerian expert endocrinologists working at the Kremlin-Bicetre hospital in Paris, and the Mohamed Lamine Debaghine hospital in Algiers.
She launched a lawsuit in August alleging cyberbullying over comments made about her gender which Boudi previously said would ‘inevitably’ include Donald Trump.
Citing ‘acts of aggravated cyber harassment’, the lawsuit names Elon Musk and JK Rowling after they led online outcry over her participation at the Paris Olympics.
The Algerian boxer won gold in the women’s welterweight category at the 2024 games, prompting gender ideology critics to weigh in on the issue online.
Trump’s latest campaign ad isn’t the first time he’s taken aim at Khelif.
During a recent appearance on The Undertaker’s ‘Six Feet Under’ podcast, Trump continually referred to Khelif as a ‘man’ after the WWE legend urged that ‘protecting’ women’s sports from transgender athletes was a huge priority for him during the upcoming election.
The Undertaker, whose real name is Mark Calaway, brought his daughter on to the podcast in an effort to show how young women are being affected by the heavily-debated issue.
‘I think it’s very demeaning to women,’ Trump said before pointing to Calaway’s daughter.
‘She wants to play sports and she wants to play against women. You don’t necessarily want to play against men. It’s okay but you don’t want to do it.
‘Did you see that boxing match at the Olympics? Did you see that beautiful Italian girl [against Khelif]? She’s supposed to be a good boxer. She took just a left jab. The guy goes boom. Like a defensive punch.’
‘I never saw something quite like that. She doesn’t go down, she walked back to her corner and said, “I just got hit harder than I’ve ever been hit before”.
‘Her corner pushes her back out, “You can do it, you can do it”. He goes with another left jab and she walks off, “There’s no way I can win”.’
Khelif’s success in Paris sparked fierce controversy and backlash both during and after the Olympic Games, despite the fact she was born female and has had her father show her birth certificate as proof of her gender as a woman.
In September, the Olympic champion took an emotional swipe at American billionaire Elon Musk, who is an avid supporter of Trump ahead of the presidential election, for leading a ‘cruel campaign’ against her during the Games.
The X tycoon, who along with Trump has been named in a cyberbullying lawsuit filed by Khelif, quoted a post on his own platform which called for men to be thrown out of women’s sports in light of her round of 16 victory over Italy’s Angela Carini, the opponent to which Trump was referring during the podcast.
Despite the furor surrounding her success at the Olympics, Khelif is now set to take the next step in her burgeoning career by turning professional.