One of the two female boxers at the center of an Olympic gender controversy pleaded with the public to “avoid bullying all athletes” Sunday night.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif, 25, made the plea in an interview with Algerian media as she and another female Olympic boxer, Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, continue to face intense scrutiny and false accusations about their gender and eligibility to compete with women.
“I address my message to all the people of the world to adhere to the Olympic principles, according to the Olympic Charter, and to avoid bullying all athletes, because this has a great impact and is capable of destroying people, killing people’s thinking and minds, and dividing people,” Khelif told the Algerian broadcaster SNTV in Arabic.
Khelif and Lin have competed for years in women’s events, including at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics, and there is no indication that they identify as transgender or intersex, the latter referring to people born with sex characteristics that do not fit strictly into the male-female gender binary.
The International Olympic Committee has fiercely defended Khelif and Lin, with its president describing the widespread incendiary online commentary as “hate speech.”
“We have two boxers who were born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in a press conference Saturday.
Khelif and Lin were cleared to compete in the women’s matches at the Paris Olympics, but their genders were called into question after reports surfaced that they had been disqualified by the Russian-led International Boxing Association from last year’s Women’s World Boxing Championships. The association alleged that the women failed to pass unspecified gender tests that found they had male chromosomes.
Khelif previously called her 2023 disqualification a “conspiracy” and has recently denounced the allegations about her gender again, telling reporters Saturday: “I want to tell the entire world that I am a female.”
“This is the question I ask myself, why is this happening until now?” she told SNTV. “I will not care about that because the important thing for me is to focus on my goal, which is the Olympics.”
Lin thanked her fans for their support in recent days.
On Sunday, IOC spokesperson Mark Adams called the International Boxing Association’s eligibility tests “flawed” and ”not legitimate.”
The association’s decision to disqualify the boxers last year also came shortly after Khelif defeated the competition’s only Russian boxer and broke the woman’s winning-streak.
The International Boxing Association, whose president is Umar Kremlev of Russia, reportedly an acquaintance of President Vladimir Putin, has had its legitimacy scrutinized in recent years.
Last year, the IOC stopped recognizing the association after it found years of financial and ethical impropriety. USA Boxing also cut ties with it last year, citing the “ongoing failures of IBA leadership.”
The International Boxing Association reaffirmed its decision to disqualify Khelif and Lin from last year’s competition last week, saying in a statement the pair also failed similar eligibility tests at its Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul in 2022.
On Monday, the association held a press conference to address the controversy but offered few additional details to back its concerns about the boxers’ genders. Its officials did not explain why they allowed Khelif and Lin to compete in the 2023 competition if they failed eligibility tests in 2022.
After Khelif’s first win in Paris last week, frequent critics of transgender rights, including Elon Musk and the “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, quickly took the opportunity to weigh in.
“A young female boxer has just had everything she’s worked and trained for snatched away because you allowed a male to get in the ring with her,” Rowling wrote last week, reposting a video of an IOC official speaking about the organization’s mental health and safeguarding initiatives.
Leading politicians in the West, including former President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also chimed in.
“I will keep men out of women’s sports!” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, in all caps.
Others have come to the pair’s defense and warned of the broader harm the scrutiny and incendiary remarks could have.
Nikki Hiltz, a nonbinary American runner participating in this Olympics, attributed the criticisms to transphobia.
“Transphobia is going crazyyyy at these Olympics,” Hiltz wrote in an Instagram story. “Anti-trans rhetoric is anti-woman. These people aren’t ‘protecting women’s sports,’ they are enforcing rigid gender norms and anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into those norms is targeted and vilified.”
Lin won her quarterfinal fight against Bulgarian Svetlana Staneva in a unanimous decision Sunday, securing an Olympic medal. She will fight Turkey’s Esra Yıldız Kahraman on Wednesday with the winner advancing to the women’s 57-kilogram gold medal round Saturday. (In Olympic boxing, there are no third-place matches, so two bronze medals are awarded to the semifinal losers.)
Khelif also clinched an Olympic medal Saturday after defeating Hungarian Anna Luca Hamori in a unanimous decision. She will compete against Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand on Tuesday, with the winner advancing to the women’s 66-kilogram gold medal round Saturday.
“God willing, this crisis will be crowned with a gold medal, and that would be the best response,” Khelif told SNTV.
