Rolling with the Punches

Imane Khelif must be feeling awfully confused. Out of nowhere, a woman who was raised in a poor, conservative family in Biban Mesbah — an agricultural village in Algeria that even most Algerians aren’t familiar with — has been quickly plunged into a toxic culture war online, where she’s the target of global abuse and harassment.

If Khelif has become the subject of headlines during these Olympic Games, it’s because it was publicized last week that she and Chinese Taipei boxer Lin Yu-ting were disqualified from the 2023 World Boxing Championships by the International Boxing Association after failing gender eligibility tests.

Due to confidentiality clauses, the exact nature of said tests was never disclosed. Yet the IBA released a statement last Wednesday explaining that the two boxers were found to “have competitive advantages over other female competitors.” It should be noted, however, that the International Olympic Committee banished the IBA last year as it found the organization was riddled with controversy, which brought the future of Olympic boxing into disrepute. The IOC also determined that both athletes should be deemed eligible to compete in the Paris 2024 Games and released a statement lambasting the IBA:

The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure — especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.

The cyber harassment went into overdrive for Khelif after her first bout against Italian boxer Angela Carini in the welterweight division on Thursday. It only took 46 seconds and two straight right-hand punches for Khelif to defeat Carini decisively. Both punches dislodged Carini’s headgear. After each blow, she raised her arm to stop the fight and consult her corner. Eventually, the referee called off the fight and awarded the victory to Khelif.

The premature stoppage triggered mass confusion in the arena. When Khelif was announced as the victor, the Italian pugilist refused to shake her hand and repeatedly screamed, “It’s not fair!” in the center of the ring. In the mixed zone following the fight, Carini’s coach told journalists, “She felt pain in her nose and said to me, “‘I don’t want to fight anymore.’”

Carini told the press: ing, “I have never been hit so hard in my life.”

Hours after the fight, “Imane Khelif” was the most searched term on Google in the United States and much of the world. It seemed like everyone everywhere had an opinion on whether Khelif should be allowed to compete in the Olympics, and those opinions were often full of hatred and bereft of any research.

Countless people have asserted that Khelif has an X and Y chromosome set, despite there not being any credible evidence to support those claims. JK Rowling called her a “male,” “enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.” Elon Musk amplified a post from Riley Gaines, who said, “men don’t belong in women’s sports.” On Truth Social, Donald Trump posted in capital letters “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS,” and his vice president nominee, JD Vance, argued, “Kamala Harris’s ideas about gender” lead “to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match.”

Indeed, what was most fascinating about the firestorm surrounding Khelif’s participation in the Olympics is that none of those who felt most strongly about her competing were interested in truth or accuracy. It didn’t matter that she has been a female all of her life, it didn’t matter that she passed the IOC’s eligibility requirements or that several of her previous opponents didn’t think she was cheating. It quickly became eminently clear that almost no one really cared about Khelif or even Carini as people. This was just another convenient occasion to rack up reposts and confirm previously held biases. 

Luckily for Khelif, she knows how to deal with bullies, even if these ones are a lot richer, a lot more powerful and a lot more famous. Back home, her own people would sometimes send her throwaway comments about her perceived masculine traits. “Bullying, what can I say to people that bully?” She asked, in a television interview back in Algeria. “I’m Imane Khelif … a human. God created me like this, there’s not much else I can say.”

Whenever she has been confronted with difficulties in her life, Khelif has found a way to knuckle down and focus on reaching her goals, shutting out the noise around her. When, as a child, she didn’t have the money to commute the 10 kilometers from Biban Mesbah to Tiaret, where her boxing gym was located, she would sell scrap metal, used dishes and return used plastic bottles for spare change needed to train. 

After qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Khelif used her bonuses to fund renovations for that very same gym that was falling apart. Instead of hiring a contractor to do the work, she and her teammates went to work with their bare hands. But, those challenges of the past seem trivial now. Over the next few weeks, Khelif will be on the biggest stage with a bullseye on her back.

“Hate on social media doesn’t affect me positively or negatively,” she once said in a sit-down interview. “What I think is important is that I need to blaze my own trail, and when they look back on my career, they’ll have to acknowledge my achievements.”

What bigger body blow could she throw at her detractors than zeroing in on her ultimate goal and winning gold for Algeria?