Human rights chief: Olympic boxing an ‘absurd and harmful spectacle’

A human rights chief has condemned Olympics boxing at Paris 2024 as an ‘absurd and dangerous spectacle’ as a second female boxer who previously failed a gender test prepares to fight today.

Criticism has been mounting after Imane Khelif, who failed a testosterone test, forced her female opponent Angela Carini to quit just 46 seconds into their bout yesterday.

Khelife, 25, was one of two athletes thrown out of last year’s world championships in New Delhi after failing to meet gender eligibility criteria.

The other was Taiwan‘s Lin Yu-ting, who is due to take on Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in the 57kg category this afternoon.

The bouts have been condemned by the charity Sex Matters, while there has also been criticism from Harry Potter author JK Rowling and double Olympic gold medal-winning ex-boxer Nicola Adams.

Khelif’s triumph yesterday was marred by controversy, with her Italian opponent withdrawing in tears after just 46 seconds and telling her corner: ‘It’s not fair.’ 

Sex Matters director of campaigns Fiona McAnena said the International Olympic Committee, which oversees the Games, should be ‘ashamed’.

She said:  ‘It’s grossly unfair that at the pinnacle of her sporting career, Italian boxer Angela Carini had to concede for her own safety.

‘The look of sheer pain and devastation in her face at that moment should be enough to end the absurd and dangerous spectacle of men in women’s sport once and for all.

People are rightly outraged, and the IOC should be ashamed, but they seem to be shameless as this is their policy in action.

‘Male advantage used against women makes nearly every sport unfair, and some sports unsafe, including boxing. This is still being played out in many sports worldwide.’

Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, endorsed efforts to get a campaign in support of Carini trending.

American swimmer Riley Gaines, who has campaigned for women’s rights in her sport, wrote on the platform: ‘Men don’t belong in women’s sports. #IStandWithAngelaCarini Let’s get it trending.’

Musk quoted Gaines’ post and replied: ‘Absolutely.’

Both Khelif and Lin were disqualified at the 2023 World Championships after failing International Boxing Association eligibility rules that prevent athletes with male XY chromosomes competing in women’s events.

But the IBA was stripped of its recognition by the IOC last year over governance and finance issues, with the Olympic body running the boxing competition in Paris.

The IOC said in a statement yesterday: ‘These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA,.

‘Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process.

‘According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO.’

Some sports have limited the levels of testosterone allowed for athletes competing in women’s competition, while others ban everyone who has been through male puberty.

Differences of Sexual Disorder are a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs.

Some people with DSDs are raised as female but have XY sex chromosomes and blood testosterone levels in the male range.

The IOC said the rules of eligibility were based on those of the Tokyo Games in 2021 and could not be changed during a competition.

The governing body added: ‘The IOC is saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving. Every person has the right to practice sport without discrimination.’

But in its own statement, the IBA condemned ‘inconsistencies in eligibility’ at the Paris Games, adding: ‘Both Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting post testing, did not meet the required eligibility criteria to compete within the female category of our respective events.

‘The urgent nature of the decision (to disqualify the boxers) was justified, as the safety of our boxers is our top priority.’

The IBA has insisted ‘the specifics remain confidential’ about the tests said to have been carried out and the laboratory which allegedly performed them has not been identified.

In a newly-unearthed interview filmed ahead of the Games, Khelif opened up about bouncing back from her ban over elevated testosterone levels and declared: ‘I wanted to show the whole world what a brave woman Imane Khelif is.’ 

During her fight yesterday, Carini was hit twice, suffered a suspected broken nose and barely threw a punch before telling her corner: ‘It’s not fair.’

She then sank to her knees, beat the canvas in frustration and refused to shake Khelif’s hand. 

After the one-sided 66kg category bout ended, Carini, also 25, said she quit the match to ‘save my life’. 

Khelif’s participation in the event has been a source of controversy after she was disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships last year.

The Olympics website noted that Khelif had been disqualified hours before a gold medal bout against China‘s Yang Liu in New Delhi after her elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria.

The Algerian Olympic Committee (COA) hit back by claiming the disqualification was part of a ‘conspiracy’ to stop them from winning a gold medal and said ‘medical reasons’ were behind high testosterone levels.

Speaking out following her loss, Carini revealed she quit to ‘safeguard my life’, adding: ‘I couldn’t carry on. I have a big pain in my nose and I said, ‘Stop’. It’s better to avoid keeping going. My nose started dripping from the first hit. 

‘It could be the match of my life but, in that moment, I had to safeguard my life, too. I felt to do this, I didn’t have any fear, I don’t have any fear of the ring or to get hit.

‘I fought very often in the national team. I train with my brother. I’ve always fought against men, but I felt too much pain today.’

After the match was stopped, the referee raised Khelif’s hand in the air. But a visibly furious Carini yanked her own hand away from the fight official and walked off.

During the rapid fight, Carini was rocked by two punches from Khelif and said the savage force of the blows made it ‘impossible to continue’.

Ignoring the Algerian after calling a halt to the bout, the Italian fighter then plunged to her knees and burst into tears – later saying she said she had never felt such strong blows in a contest before. 

Speaking after the match, the heartbroken Italian said: ‘I’m used to suffering. I’ve never taken a punch like that, it’s impossible to continue. I’m nobody to say it’s illegal. 

‘I got into the ring to fight. But I didn’t feel like it anymore after the first minute. I started to feel a strong pain in my nose. I didn’t give up, but a punch hurt too much and so I said enough. I’m leaving with my head held high.’

She said she did not walk away from the fight as a protest against her opponent’s inclusion, but that was a decision for the Olympics to consider.

Asked why she knelt at the end of the match, she said it was for her late father, who died in 2021, before adding: ‘I am sorry not to have taken Italy on to the podium.’ 

She was taken away for medical assessment to examine the seriousness of her facial injuries which included a bruised nose.

Carini added: ‘I entered the ring and I told myself I have to take out all of myself independently from the person I had in front of me.

‘And honestly, I don’t care. I said to myself, ‘This is my Olympics’. Independently, from all controversy, I just wanted to carry on and win.’

‘I am not one that easily surrenders. Even if they told me, let’s not fight, I would not have accepted it.

‘I am a fighter. My father taught me to be a warrior. When I am in the ring, I use that mindset, the mindset of a warrior, a winning mindset. This time I couldn’t make it.

‘You all saw my nose that started bleeding. I didn’t lose tonight, I just surrendered with maturity.’

‘I wish her to carry on until the end and that she can be happy. I am someone who doesn’t judge anyone. I am not here to give judgements.

‘I simply entered the ring to fight and to fight for my dream. It didn’t happen. Evidently, God and my father wanted this and I accept it.

‘I am not in the position of saying this is right or wrong. I am not. I did my job as a boxer, entering the ring and fighting. I didn’t manage to, but I am exiting with my head held high and with a broken heart.

‘I am a mature woman, the ring is my life. I’ve always been very instinctive, but when I feel something is not going well, it’s not a surrender but having the maturity to stop.’

Carini’s coach in the mixed zone after the fight said: ‘I don’t know if her nose is broken. I have to speak with the girl. But many people in Italy tried to call and tell her: ‘Don’t go please: it’s a man, it’s dangerous for you.’ 

After the clash, the Algerian Boxing Federation gloated about Khelif’s victory, posting on Facebook: ‘Congratulations to the Algerian boxer Iman Khalif, who responds strongly in the ring and qualifies for the quarterfinals, after defeating the Italian Angelina Carini in less than 46 seconds, effortlessly.’

Speaking as she left the ring, the Algerian boxer said: ‘God willing, this was the first victory. God is willing me to the golden one.’ 

The Algerian added: ‘Difficult for a first fight. Insh’allah (if Allah wills it) for the second fight. I am very prepared because it’s been eight years of preparation. It’s my second Olympic Games after fifth place at Tokyo.

‘I need an Olympic medal here in Paris. We will be ready and we will do everything to bring back a medal for Algeria. One, two, three, viva Algeria.’

She declined to comment on the controversial decision to include her in the Olympics

Bosses at the IOC are now facing a furious backlash following the fight, with former Prime Minister Liz Truss blasting the clash.

Writing on Twitter, the ex-Tory MP said: ‘When will this madness stop? Men cannot become women. Why is the British Government not objecting to this?’

British Olympics swimming hero Sharron Davies also waded into the controversy, raging: ‘This is shocking. The IOC are a bloody disgrace. In effect legalising beating up females. This must stop!!! What the hell’s the matter with them?’

While Harry Potter author JK Rowling branded the contest ‘insanity’. In a post yesterday, the gender-critical author wrote: ‘What will it take to end this insanity? A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer killed?’ 

Posting a video of the fight, the author added: ‘Watch this (whole thread), then explain why you’re OK with a man beating a woman in public for your entertainment. This isn’t sport. From the bullying cheat in red all the way up to the organisers who allowed this to happen, this is men revelling in their power over women.’

Carini is an Italian police officer with the Fiamme Oro.

Her mantra is: ‘Boxing is a sport that teaches you to have respect for your opponent. It can be a weapon in life, but only for defence. It cannot and must not become an abuse. Like any sport, it can instead become a vehicle for venting anger and pain.’

Khelif was thrown out of last year’s world championships after failing testosterone tests carried out to establish gender qualification. 

But despite her gender test problems, she was admitted to the Olympics amid a huge furore.

Olympics officials at Paris 2024 have accepted her as a female and state so in her official games biography.

Former world featherweight champion Barry McGuigan – now president of the Professional Boxing Association – said it was a ‘shocking’ and ‘pathetic’ decision to allow ‘a man’ to fight women.

Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) has said after a series of DNA-tests the association ‘uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretended to be women.

Kremlev claimed that the tests ‘proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the sports events.’

Italy’s sports minister Andrea Abodi raised concerns about Khelif competing, but Angela Carini was on record as saying that ‘respect’ of her opponents was her mantra.

Algeria’s Olympic Committee condemned as ‘baseless’ the attacks on their boxer after questions were raised over her participation at the Paris Olympics.

But Khelif, who competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, only fell into controversy after failing the tests last year in New Delhi.

She received resounding applause from staunch Algerian supporters as she entered the ring, but there were several boos.

At 5’10 and two inches taller than her police officer opponent, Khelif showed off her power with a series of powerful punches early in the three round contest.

But it was over in less than a minute.

Italian officials had already protested the inclusion of the Algerian and Olympic officials were assessing how to deal with further controversies surrounding the Algerian as she fights her way towards a medal.

Carini’s father also served in the police, but was injured in an accident when she was a toddler and had to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Speaking in 2020, she said: ‘My father is my hero. I am very attached to him, he taught me that in life you should never give up. And when I’m in the ring and the situation gets tough, I hear his example, I never give up.

‘When he was paralysed I was only two years old. I grew up on his legs, he never made me miss anything. I have never seen him as a different father from the others, the chair on which he is sitting has never divided us, quite the contrary.’

Her father died away in 2021, a few days after her Olympic debut at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games, and she considered quitting the sport.

‘I didn’t want to box without my dad anymore. But I came back because I owe it to him. He has always been by my side and now we fight together.’

The clash comes amid a gender storm at the Olympics over fighters who have failed testosterone tests competing in the female divisions. 

IOC bosses overseeing the Olympics in Paris said Khelif met the eligibility criteria to compete – despite concerns of the boxer’s biological sex. 

Following last year’s ban, the Algerian Olympic Committee hit back, claiming the disqualification was part of a ‘conspiracy’ to stop them from winning a gold meal and said ‘medical reasons’ were behind high testosterone levels. 

After the disqualification, Mexico’s Brianda Tamara came forward with her own experience of fighting Khelif earlier in the tournament.

‘When I fought with her I felt very out of my depth,’ she wrote on X. ‘Her blows hurt me a lot, I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized.’

According to feminist website Reduxx, both Khelif and Lin are thought both are impacted by a Difference of Sexual Development (DSD), a series of medical conditions identified at birth where genitalia is atypical in relation to chromosomes.

McGuigan is among those questioning the situation. ‘It’s shocking that they were actually allowed to get this far, what is going on?’ he wrote on X.

Elsewhere, Nancy Hogshead – the American swimmer who won three golds at the 1984 Games, waded into the row, claiming that ‘gender ideology will get women KILLED’.

Hogshead wrote: ‘Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan are scheduled to compete in women’s Olympic boxing – despite being disqualified last year for having XY chromosomes, the male phenotype. Let’s remind ourselves that males – however they identify – pack a punch that is 162 per cent more powerful than women – THE biggest performance gap between men and women. Gender ideology will get women KILLED.’

One X user added: ‘Men punching women is now officially an Olympic sport’.

Speaking to MailOnline, sports scientist Professor Ross Tucker said: ‘Would you allow a 90kg fighter to fight against a 60kg fighter? 

‘Because that’s more or less what the difference is in strength and power between male and female boxers.’

Tests on both Khelif and Yu-Ting revealed XY chromosomes in their systems.

Speaking earlier this week, International Olympic Committee spokesperson Mark Adams said: ‘Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules.’

He added: ‘They are women in their passports and it’s stated that this is the case, that they are female.’

Prior to 2021, the IOC set thresholds for the maximum amount of testosterone — the ‘male’ sex hormone — competitors in women’s events could have. These were picked up in blood tests, similar to ones for doping. 

Rules on testosterone limits had been previosuly brought into sharp focus by the very public and famous case of Caster Semenya.

Semenya has a condition which means her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than normal for women.

She became unable to compete at Tokyo in 2020 after World Athletics brought in new rules independently of the IOC at the time. 

IOC’s own testosterone monitoring policies were halted three years ago and replaced with a policy of ‘fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identify and sex variation’. 

The IOC now provides individual sporting bodies in every country with ‘ten guiding principles’ they can use to make their own policies.

This controversial document states that athletes with ‘sex variations’, another term for DSDs, have ‘no presumption of advantage’ and that they should be allowed to compete in the category of their gender identity.

There are exceptions, with framework stating that an ‘evidence-based approach’ can be used to exclude athletes who have a ‘consistent unfair disproportionate advantage’ or if there is an ‘unpreventable risk’ to the safety of other athletes.

Federations that govern rugby, track and field, swimming and cycling have all introduced rules in some form to address biological males in women’s sport, though the exact details of policies vary.

And boxing did as well, with the International Boxing Association (IAB) requiring athletes to undergo ‘gender assessment’.

Though it doesn’t detail the exact nature of these assessments, it is this test that Khelif and Lin failed last year at the IAB’s Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi.

The IOC created a new body, the Paris Boxing Unit (PBU), to determine eligibility for competitors. 

Documents from the PBU make no mention of gender or sex testing for male or female events, though they do set limits for the age of competitors, a passport being an acceptable ID for athletes and requiring boxers in the women’s category to declare if they are pregnant. 

Defending its decision to approve Khelif and Lin as women the IOC’s Mr Adams added: ‘These athletes have competed many times before for many years. They haven’t just suddenly arrived.’

But sports scientist Professor Tucker, said the absence of clear policy by the IOC in this area had allowed this situation to occur. 

‘Last year [Khelif and Lin] did not meet eligibility requirements and the only reason they do now is the body that did rule them ineligible has been moved aside,’ he said. 

‘It’s due to a vacuum of policy, there’s no policy now.’