Imane Khelif against virtual uppercuts

(Paris) On Tuesday night, the Roland-Garros stadium will be the scene of an important boxing match. The stakes: a place in the Olympic final. But before even jumping into the ring, Algerian Imane Khelif will have lost another fight.

The one for his dignity.

For the past week, she has been the target of an inexhaustible campaign of harassment on social media and in the political sphere. She has been called trans (which is false) and a man (also false, according to official information). “Her pride is hurt,” her coach was indignant. For politicians and columnists who see wokes In their Alphabits, their bowl of soup and their green tea, the presence of Imane Khelif at the Paris Games is the height of senseless causes and the decline of Olympic values.

Break.

Can we take a minute to dot the i’s, cross the t’s and untangle the x’s from the y’s?

As far as we know, Imane Khelif was born a woman. “She is registered as a woman, she lives her life as a woman, she boxes as a woman and her passport says she is a woman,” said a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC adds that due to an unspecified medical condition, Khelif’s testosterone levels are higher than normal. This is characteristic of hyperandrogenic women. At the same time, an international boxing federation, the IBA, maintains that the Algerian failed a gender test in 2023. Stay with me, I’ll come back to that in a moment.

The presence of hyperandrogenic women in elite sport is disturbing. It is normal. In several disciplines, their physical condition makes the competition unfair.

This is the case in middle-distance athletics. At the Rio Games in 2016, all three 800m medallists naturally produced abnormal levels of testosterone. Since then, the International Federation has changed its rules. Women with high testosterone levels are banned from races under 5km, unless they take medication to change their condition.

Is the advantage equally pronounced in all sports? What about table tennis, archery, or even boxing, where weight classes are already in place to limit inequalities related to physical characteristics?

It is true that during her first fight in Paris, Imane Khelif knocked out an Italian opponent with a solid punch to the face. It was, on Monday, the only fight that ended in a withdrawal. However, contrary to the rumor that is circulating, Angela Carini did not throw in the towel in protest. She did it because she was stunned. Period. She also confided to The Sports Gazette that if she met Imane Khelif again, she would “kiss” her.

Now, this isn’t the first fight in boxing history to end prematurely. Khelif’s career record (37-9, 5 KOs) is far from suggesting that she crushes her opponents. Do you know who has a similar record among pros and amateurs? Quebec boxer Kim Clavel (43-9), who no one has ever considered a potential killer, as I’ve read about the Algerian.

Quite frankly, when Imane Khelif lost, her presence didn’t bother anyone.

Its 33^e place at the 2019 World Championships did not cause any controversy. Nor did her exclusion from the podium at the Tokyo Games. The same goes for Taiwanese Lin Yu-Ting (19-5, 0 KOs), also at the heart of a gender controversy here in Paris.

The controversy began at the 2023 World Championships, after Khelif defeated a previously undefeated Russian boxer. The tournament’s governing body, the IBA, run by a Russian and sponsored by Russian firm Gazprom, disqualified her and Yu-Ting on the basis of failed gender tests. The defeated boxer, Azalia Amineva, was thus able to maintain her unblemished record.

What test exactly did the two boxers undergo? It remains unclear to this day. At a press conference on Monday, IBA officials gave two contradictory answers. The CEO said it was a blood test to detect chromosomes. The president suggested instead that it was a test to determine testosterone levels. “The results showed that they had high levels of testosterone, like men,” Umar Kremlev said. No levels were presented.

The IOC has no interest in the IBA tests. It considers the federation so corrupt that it has withdrawn its hosting of the Paris Games. It also places the controversy within a broader campaign by Russia to discredit the Olympic movement – ​​which would not be surprising.

Still, there is work to be done to prevent this from happening again. First, determine precisely the impact of hyperandrogenism on the results of boxing matches, to know which direction to take. This would already be much more productive than polluting the conversation with lies or shortcuts, as Republican candidate Donald Trump did in particular by promising that once elected president, he would keep men away from women’s sports.

Let’s trust scientists, ethicists, and athletes, rather than X-account owners with blue hooks who enjoy dishing out virtual uppercuts every five minutes.