Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal for her weight class in women’s boxing after a Games full of accusations around her gender.
The Algerian boxer defeated China’s Yang Liu in a unanimous decision Friday. The gold medal victory came after over a week of critics attacking Khelif’s gender.
The controversy began after Khelif defeated Italian boxer Angela Carini in less than a minute in the opening round. It re-sparked a debate on whether Khelif should have been allowed to compete after she failed an unspecified gender eligibility test from the now-banned International Boxing Association, despite being born and always living and identifying as a woman.
Speculation circulated around whether she may have a higher than normal level of testosterone or be a woman with both an X and Y chromosome. The attacks and accusations continued into the quarterfinal match where Khelif handily defeated Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori. That victory came only hours after Hamori posted – and quickly deleted – an image on her Instagram of a female boxer facing down a horned monster.
The false accusations made headlines throughout the week. Megyn Kelly said on her show, “Look at this, this is a man. This is a man who is competing in the boxing tournament for women.”
“The Daily Show” rotating host Michael Kosta called Kelly out in a segment Monday following the comments.
“No, she’s not, she’s a woman,” Kosta replied. “She’s a woman like you, Megyn Kelly, a woman at the peak of her career, unlike Megyn Kelly, but she… she still is a woman.”
As for the Olympics Committee themselves, they’ve defended both Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting.
“Let’s be very clear here: We are talking about women’s boxing,” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised a woman, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women. And this is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.”
