Coming from a poor village nearly 300 km from Algiers, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, at the heart of a controversy over gender during the Paris Olympics, overcame obstacles and prejudices to be able to practice her sport.
On Saturday, if she wins her quarter-final against the Hungarian Luca Anna Hamori, she will be assured of winning at least bronze, Algeria’s first medal at the Paris Games.
Braided hair, tall (1.79 m), Imane Khelif, 25, told her story in the form of a fairy tale, smiling, a month before the Olympics on the French-language public channel Canal Algérie.
“Our village was about 10 km from the city centre (of Tiaret, 280 km southwest of Algiers). I went from the village to the city. From the city to the capital. From the capital to abroad,” she confided.
Coming from a modest family in the semi-desert region of Tiaret, she highlighted the difficulties of her journey in “a village of conservative people”.
“I come from a conservative family. Boxing was not a sport that was very popular with women, especially in Algeria. It was difficult,” she told Canal Algérie.
Athletic, she played football with the boys in her village of Biban Mesbah but her ability to outdo them sometimes got her into fights. Which led her to boxing.
In another interview for UNICEF, for which she is an ambassador, she stressed that she had to sell scrap metal, and her mother homemade couscous, to pay for their bus tickets from their village to Tiaret.
Her father did not approve of her choice to box, but he became one of her biggest fans. The 49-year-old unemployed welder told an AFP correspondent that he was proud of his daughter, “an example of an Algerian woman, one of Algeria’s heroines.”
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Praising “her strong will to work and train”, he brushed aside insinuations about her gender: “My child is a girl, she was raised as a girl, she is a strong and courageous girl.”
In 2022, Imane told the Algerian agency APS that she had considered giving up boxing “because my family did not accept the idea, and because of the way society looked at me, which considered that I was doing something wrong.”
But “all these barriers made me stronger and were an extra motivation to achieve my dream,” she added.
At the Tokyo Games in 2021, she reached the quarter-finals (-63 kg), finally beaten by the Irish Kellie Harlington.
“Everything changed for the better, especially when my country’s flag was flying and its anthem was played in many countries around the world” after her victories, she explained.
In 2023, she reached the semi-finals of the world championship in New Delhi. But she was disqualified following gender eligibility tests organized by the International Boxing Federation (IBA), which is not recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The IBA did not specify the nature of these tests, denying that they were a measurement of testosterone levels.
For the IOC, her eligibility is not in doubt. She can participate in the Games. But the exclusion of New Delhi resurfaces when the Italian Angela Carini retires in the first seconds of their fight in the 8th final in Paris.
The Olympic Committee is protesting against the cyberbullying campaign that immediately targeted her. Hateful messages, often tinged with racism, are multiplying on social networks, describing her as “a man fighting women”.
“All these controversies give him the strength to move forward,” said his coach Mohamed Chaoua.
A determination displayed by the champion on the UNICEF website: “My dream is to win a gold medal. If I win, mothers and fathers will be able to see how far their children can go. I want to inspire girls and children in Algeria.”