“Where is Imane Khelif? Still hitting women, of course”, was a headline that really caught my eye earlier this week.
It’s hardly surprising, I think you’ll agree, that it attracted my attention.
Of all the memorable moments that came out of Paris 2024 last summer, perhaps the most, for all the wrong reasons, was Imane Khelif’s boxing gold medal.
Khelif’s win turned out to be one of the most controversial victories in recent Olympic Games history, and became one of the most widely-covered and most commented-upon stories of Paris 2024.
Khelif was fighting in the women’s category but was, it was reported, biologically male.
The allegations stemmed from the fact that the Algerian had been banned from competing in the women’s event at the previous year’s World Championships due to sex tests suggesting the presence of male chromosomes. Despite this, though, she had been cleared to fight at the Olympics due to the IOC going by whatever gender is on an athlete’s passport.
Khelif won gold in Paris, but her victory was entirely overshadowed by the controversy over her participation.
Her second round opponent, Angela Carini of Italy, lasted 46 seconds of the fight before quitting, claiming post-fight that she had never been hit so hard in her life and she threw in the towel because she felt she had to “preserve her life”.
Khelif progressed through the Olympic boxing tournament and, with every victory, the outcry over her participation grew louder and louder.
Khelif’s supporters asserted she had been born female and brought up as a female and so had every right to box as a woman. The Algerian threatened legal action against anyone who claimed, wrongfully she said, that she was male.
What came out of Paris 2024 was that the evident absence of definitive rules surrounding any female athletes with gender questions hanging over them were far too loose.
The question of who is male and who is female shouldn’t, in theory, be particularly hard to answer.
But those in charge of the sport displayed a complete dereliction of duty by ensuring that Khelif was engulfed in a storm about her gender.
I assumed, as I think did many, that despite Khelif’s protestations post-Paris that she would not just “disappear”, we wouldn't hear much from the Algerian for quite some time.
How wrong I was.
Khelif believed that, next week and less than 12 months after winning Olympic gold, she would be back in competitive action.
The 26-year-old was scheduled to fight in the Eindhoven Box Cup - the women's event, of course - and as the tournament start date approached, the storm that engulfed her during the Olympics began to blow up once again.
The confusion over Khelif’s gender has not been helped by the opaque way the boxing authorities treated any information they’d gathered on her, as well as on Lin Yu-Ting, a fighter from Taiwan who also reportedly failed the same gender test as Khelif prior to Paris 2024, and who also went on to win Olympic gold last summer.
The International Boxing Association, which ran the 2023 World Championships and ordered the disqualifications of the two fighters two years ago, said in a statement that the disqualifications came after “the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognised test.”
The specifics of the tests remain confidential but the IBA added that the results “conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.”
That seems relatively conclusive to me, yet it seemed we were preparing to watch Khelif fight women once again.
That she has been keen to fan the flames hasn’t helped the situation.
“I see myself as a girl just like any other girl,” Khelif said in a recent interview. “I was born a girl, raised as a girl, and have lived my entire life as one,” and a PR company enlisted by Khelif to work on her behalf reinforced this message, posting on Instagram earlier this week: “When Imane lands a hit, enemy egos are sent straight to the graveyard.”
It’s hard to argue that this kind of inflammatory rhetoric is in the interest of anyone; not the other female fighters, not the sport and not Khelif herself.
A last-minute intervention by the sport's recently installed global governing body, World Boxing, however, means Khelif will have to undergo sex-testing if she wants to compete next week, or in any subsequent tournament. Her withdrawal from next week's event in the Netherlands now seems inevitable, thus avoiding the inevitable backlash that would have exploded as soon as her first punch landed.
The point that I made last summer still stands, though; by having such opaque and loose rules, the issue becomes about one individual, in this case Khelif. This is a wider issue than one single boxer but the lack of leadership remains the primary problem and leads to one, lone person becoming the centre of a story that is, in fact, about more than merely a single fighter.
World Boxing's new ruling may have come late, but better late than never.
And so, a year on from Paris 2024, we’re finally, and thankfully, seeing men being stopped from punching women in the face.
AND ANOTHER THING…
The defeat of Josh Taylor by Ekow Essuman in Glasgow last weekend was both surprising and sad to watch.
Taylor is one of Scotland’s greatest-ever athletes - in becoming the undisputed light-welterweight champion of the world, Taylor joined a select group of fighters globally who have achieved such a feat.
However, his defeat last weekend was his third loss in a row and such has been his inactivity, he’s not won a competitive bout for over three years.
Where Taylor goes now is interesting; does he persist with his comeback and fight what appears to be a losing battle to regain the form that saw him become the very best in the world?
There’s no easy answer for the 34-year-old and he’s already said he’s not going to make any rash decisions.
Unless he truly believes he can return to the very top of boxing, I don’t think we’ll see him step into a ring again. If he retains the desire and the belief, though, there’s every chance he will fight again.
Either way, Taylor’s record affords him as much time he needs to decide where his future lies.
And whatever his decision, his record in the ring means he will go down as one of Scotland’s true greats.
