Unhinged controversy around Olympic boxer Imane Khelif should never happen again.
VILLEPINTE, France – There is no doubt that the next time we do this in Los Angeles, Olympic boxing will look different than it did on Saturday: A young woman from rural Algeria who has spent 48 hours in the middle of an international firestorm, a ravenous media screaming questions as she walked past being shielded by her coaches, sobbing visibly after she won an important fight, and an Olympic delegation from the country of the loser suggesting in the most diplomatic way possible they didn’t believe any of this was legitimate.
This can’t happen again.
Imane Khelif’s mere presence here has exposed it, the outcast boxing officials clinking their vodka glasses in Moscow have made sure of it and the unaccountability of social media has confirmed it.
The IOC’s management of the Paris Olympics boxing tournament has proven to be a failure. It’s a failure of anticipation, communication and clarity, and the consequences have allowed the Russians to run a psyop on the world that will turn every subsequent competition into a witch hunt for genitals and chromosomes.
Despite what is now ironclad evidence that Khelif was born a woman in Algeria, has lived as a woman and knows nothing about herself other than being a woman, enough of the world is now convinced she doesn’t belong at the Olympics that it is impossible for anyone to leave here a winner.
It’s a circus. And with Khelif now just two more wins away from a gold medal after defeating Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary on Saturday, it’s only going to get worse.
Even though she’s done nothing wrong. Even though there’s no evidence she’s anything other than what she says and believes she is.
“We are 100 percent convinced every match has to be decided on the play field, or in this case in the ring,” said Balazs Furjes, a high-level official in Viktor Orban’s far-right government who serves as Hungary’s IOC representative. “Therefore, it was never an option either for Anna Luca or myself or the committee not to fight.
“We Hungarians are always ready to fight bravely, and that’s what we just saw. We are a proud founding nation of the international Olympic Committee, we are an old member, a loyal member. Of course, all competitions have their consequences. And like every other competition, these will be evaluated after the Games. And as loyal members of the (IOC), we are 100 percent convinced that the (IOC) will make the right decisions. “
All things considered, that was pretty measured given the political benefit in Orban’s Hungary to claim foul and gaslight this for all it’s worth. Even Hamori said that she accepted her unanimous decision loss to Khalif was a fair fight despite the Hungarians reportedly protesting in advance of the bout.
But it’s also not typical for an IOC member to deliver that kind of statement in the press zone after an Olympic event. The message was unmistakable. The pressure’s on now to do something about boxing going forward.
This is where the IOC failed itself, and most of all failed Khalif and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan.
They should have known that the International Boxing Association, which has been completely thrown out of the Olympics because it is a corrupted, fully-owned subsidiary of the Russian government, has been champing at the bit for revenge.
Even if the IOC doesn’t give any credibility to the so-called “gender tests” that the IBA used to disqualify Khalif and Lin from their world championships in 2023 – and there are many reasons to be skeptical of the Russians’ motives in administering those tests midway through that tournament – they knew this information was out there.
If they didn’t anticipate that it would only take one punch for this to become the biggest story of the Olympics given how much anti-trans rhetoric fuels right-wing politics in places like the U.S. and Great Britain, they are not very savvy about the way things work in 2024.
Best guess: IOC officials sat in their offices in Switzerland and figured that because these two women are not transgender, are indeed eligible to compete in the Olympics under the current standards and have previously been in international competitions without controversy, it wouldn’t become an issue.
Whoops.
Because the thing is with these anti-trans crusaders, no answer is ever good enough. They put forward bills in state legislatures wanting to check girls’ genitals before they go play basketball or volleyball. But then you get a case like Khalif where it’s very clear she has female body parts – her father was interviewed Saturday showing a birth document listing her as a female – and they want a chromosome test. Give them that, they’ll want a full lab workup of every strand of DNA in their bodies.
And if you let them win, if you let them think they’re right, they’ll never stop. They’ll want answers about every female tennis player with unusually wide shoulders or every women’s golfer with a jaw line or every basketball player that has a suspiciously deep voice.
It’s not just a bad idea, it’s dystopian what’s happening here.
Because you have to understand, this isn’t really about fairness. Fairness doesn’t exist in sports – never has, never will. Their crusade is about power and an ideology that demands a woman fit into their idea of what a woman should be.
The IOC’s inability to anticipate all this, and then to be naïve enough to think that you can placate people who have convinced themselves that purity in women’s sports is the greatest fight of 21st century civilization, leaves them with two choices: Find someone who can manage this tournament in 2028 or rid the Olympics of boxing.
As it is now, they left the door open and the Russians rammed a psyop right through it. You saw what the IBA did, didn’t you? They’re offering the same $50,000 prize money for an Olympic gold medal winner to the Italian fighter being elevated to heroine status among the far-right, anti-trans warriors in the United States after losing to Khalif.
That’s $50,000 for 46 seconds in the ring, one punch and post-fight dramatics that set the world on fire.
This wasn’t on the level. It’s maybe the biggest return on investment for a disinformation campaign in human history.
Now someone’s got to pick up the pieces.
Maybe it’s World Boxing, a group formed in 2023 hoping to become the new federation for Olympic boxing and sanction the tournament for 2028. Their statement to USA TODAY Sports reads as follows:
“At World Boxing, we put boxers first and the safety of athletes is absolutely paramount. We have recognized for some time that gender clarity is an extremely complex issue, with significant welfare concerns and deeply-held views, and our Medical Committee is in the process of examining every aspect of this area so that we can develop a policy that prioritizes the health of boxers and deliver sporting integrity while endeavoring to ensure the sport is as inclusive as possible.”
It’s not very specific, but it’s a start.
The last couple days have shown the sport has a long way to go, and there are forces in this world who won't stop until every athlete who looks different from what they think a woman should be is subject to propaganda and worldwide scorn.
But whatever they do to fix this broken sport, they have to make sure a scene like Saturday can never happen again.