Australian Olympians have weighed in on the Paris Games boxing saga, expressing concern for two fighters at the centre of a gender controversy.
Their comments came after the Hungarian Boxing Association contacted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to object to the participation of Imane Khelif, who won a lightning-fast, on Thursday.
Her win sparked a backlash from some circles after Carini said she had “never felt a punch like this” and refused to shake hands. Some critics have falsely labelled Khelif a man.
Carini apologised a day later, telling the Italian newspaper Gazetta Dello Sport the controversy made her “sad” and that she was “angry” because her “Olympics had gone up in smoke”.
“If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision,” she told the newspaper.
Khelif and fellow women’s boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, who have fought for several years, were disqualified from the world championships held last year by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for supposedly failing unspecified gender eligibility tests. The results of those tests have never been released.
Lin’s and Khelif’s passports say they are female and they have no eligibility issues with the IOC, which runs the Olympic boxing tournament in the absence of IBA, banished due to integrity concerns.
The IOC said the IBA’s decision to disqualify the boxers last year was “sudden”, “arbitrary” and made “without due process”.
Boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan. Source: AAP, Press Association / Poupart Julien/ABACA
Trailblazing boxer, the first Muslim woman to box for Australia at the Olympics, has expressed concern for Khelif and Lin amid the criticism.
Rahimi, who lost to Poland’s Julia Szeremeta on Friday, asked for the evidence that led to the pair’s IBA eligibility ban.
“Men should be participating in men’s sport and women should be participating in women’s sport and I think there’s just been a lot of talk, but there’s no proper evidence that has been provided,” she said.
“Until there’s proper facts then people shouldn’t really be talking about it.”
Rahimi also said that the media storm around the boxers could take a “massive toll” on the mental health of the athletes and called it “unnecessary”.
Skye Nicholson, who participated in the Tokyo Games but is not in Paris, republished a statement from Irish boxer Amy Broadhurst, who referred to the situation as “crazy”.
Broadhurst posted a photo on social media of a handshake between her and Khelif saying the “abuse this person has received in the last 24 hours without any real facts or proof is so wrong!!”
Referring to Broadhurst’s post, Nicholson said “don’t be so quick to jump on something just because the media is forcing a narrative”.
In a follow-up post, Nicholson said she had sparred with and fought both Khelif and Lin and said the criticism and scrutiny they have received is undeserved.
Australian boxer Tina Rahimi. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch
Algeria files complaint as saga escalates
Khelif will next face Hungary’s Luca Anna Hamori, while Lin faces will compete against Svetlana Kamenova Staneva of Bulgaria.
On Thursday, Hamori said she was not scared of Khelif, while Staneva said the row was not a good look for women’s boxing.
Hungary’s boxing federation, the MOB, has protested Khelif’s participation. It said on Friday it had written to the Hungarian Olympic Committee objecting to the participation of Khelif, ahead of her fight against Hamori.
“The MOB is … continuously examining the means it can use to protect Hamori’s rights to fair competition under the rules in force,” it said in a statement.
“The MOB president has initiated immediate consultations with the IOC Director of Sport to clarify the situation.”
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif (right) and Italy’s Angela Carini. Source: AAP / John Locher/AP
Meanwhile, Hamori posted a cartoon of a slender woman in a boxing ring alongside a huge beast on social media.
That post is believed to have sparked the Algerian Olympic Committee’s complaint to the lOC. It wrote on Facebook it had been filed due to a “serious violation and transgression of the ethics of sport… by one of the participants in the boxing tournament”.
The Facebook post continued: “The IOC has issued a final warning to violators, with an order to delete every post that harms our heroine, Imane Khelif.”
With additional reporting by the Australian Associated Press and Reuters.
