VILLEPINTE, France Imane Khelif of Algeria won her first Olympic boxing match on Thursday when opponent Angela Carini of Italy withdrew after just 46 seconds.
Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test, and her presence at the Paris Olympics has become a divisive issue.
Carini and Khelif exchanged just a few punches before Carini walked away and abandoned the fight, an extremely unusual occurrence in Olympic boxing. Carini, whose helmet was apparently dislodged at least once before withdrawing, did not shake Khelif’s hand after the decision was announced but cried on his knees in the ring.
Afterwards, Carini, still tearful, said she gave up because of intense pain in her nose after the initial punches. Carini, who had a bloodstain on his shorts, said he was not making a political statement and was not refusing to fight Khelif.
“I felt a strong pain in my nose and, with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough’, because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the fight,” said Carini. .
Carini also said she is not qualified to decide whether Khelif should be allowed to compete.
“I’m not here to judge or judge,” Carini said. “If an athlete is like that, and in that sense he is not right or is right, it is not for me to decide. I just did my job as a boxer. I got in the ring and fought. head held high and heartbroken for not finishing the last kilometer.”
Khelif is an accomplished amateur who won a silver medal at the 2022 International Boxing Association world championships. The IBA – which was banned from the Olympics since 2019, after years of disputes with the IOC – disqualified her from last year’s championship, shortly before her gold medal match, because of what she claimed were high testosterone levels.
The 25-year-old entered the ring at the North Paris Arena to a chorus of applause, but the crowd was left confused by the fight’s sudden end. Italy coach Emanuele Renzini said he discussed the clash with Carini and offered to allow her to withdraw early, but the boxer was “very determined” to fight until the first minute.
“I’m heartbroken because I’m a fighter,” Carini said. “My father taught me to be a warrior. I have always entered the ring with honor and I have always (served) my country with loyalty. And this time I couldn’t because I couldn’t fight anymore, so I ended the fight.”
Khelif can win an Olympic medal with a quarterfinal victory on Saturday against Anna Luca Hamori, Hungary’s first female Olympic boxer.
Hamori expressed no concern about fighting Khelif.
“I’m not scared,” said Hamori, who defeated Marissa Williamson Pohlman of Australia. “I don’t care about the history of the press and social media. If she or he is a man, it will be a greater victory for me if I win.”
Hamori and Khelif have never fought, but they have competed in the same tournament before. Hamori has repeatedly said he is not paying attention to the controversy because it is just an obstacle to his quest for gold.
“I’m trying not to use my phone before the fight,” Hamori said. “I don’t want to care about the comments, the story or the news. I just want to stay focused on myself. I did that before the last two fights, so I think that’s the key and we’ll see.”
And Hamori could only shrug his shoulders at Carini’s decision to give up.
“It was her choice,” Hamori said. “I don’t understand, because I thought every boxer’s mind is like mine, never giving up. But it was her choice. We don’t know what the reason was. It’s her life, but I know I want to do this in my own life.”
After years of competing in amateur tournaments around the world, Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan suddenly received Massive scrutiny for your presence in Paris. Lin won the IBA world championships in 2018 and 2022, but the governing body stripped her of her bronze medal last year because it claimed she failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.
Lin begins his race in Paris on Friday. She fights Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in her opening bout after receiving a first-round bye as the No. 1 seed in the 57-kilogram category, although Olympic rankings are often not indicative of the top contenders for medals in a division.
The Algerian Olympic Committee issued a statement on Wednesday condemning what it called “lies” and “unethical attacks and defamation of our esteemed athlete, Imane Khelif, with baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who visited Italian athletes in the Olympic Village on Thursday, criticized the fact that Carini had boxed with Khelif, saying that since 2021 she had been opposed to allowing athletes with “genetically male” characteristics to compete. against women.
“We have to pay attention, in an attempt not to discriminate, that we are actually discriminating” against women’s rights, Meloni said.
She said that it is necessary to guarantee the rights of athletes so that they can compete on equal terms.
“In these things what counts is dedication, head and character, but parity of weapons also counts,” said Meloni.
Khelif and Lin are two-time Olympians who fought at the Tokyo Games. Lin has been an elite amateur boxer for a decade and Khelif for six years.
The IOC has repeatedly defended the boxers’ right to compete this week. Olympic boxing has achieved gender parity for the first time this year, with 124 men and 124 women competing in Paris.
The IOC said it made its boxer eligibility decisions based on the gender-related rules that applied at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Several sports have updated their gender rules in the last three years, including World Water Sports, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. Last year, the athletics entity also reinforced the rules for athletes with differences in sexual development.
The IOC is responsible for boxing in Paris because it revoked the IBA’s Olympic status after years of governance problems, a lack of financial transparency and many cases of corruption in judging and refereeing.
The IBA is controlled by President Umar Kremlev, who is Russian. He brought in Russian state-owned Gazprom as his main sponsor and moved much of IBA’s operations to Russia.
Since then, the IBA has lost more than three dozen members who formed a new group called World Boxing, which hopes to be recognized by the IOC as the sport’s governing body ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
The IBA aggressively took advantage of the presence of the two boxers in Paris to criticize the IOC. After the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the IOC’s ban earlier this year, the IBA appealed to the Swiss Federal Court in a last-ditch attempt to defeat the IOC.
The banned body issued a statement on Wednesday stating that both boxers did not undergo a “testosterone test” last year, but were “subjected to a separate and recognized test” leading to their disqualification. The IBA said the “specifications of the test remain confidential”, declining to explain it.
The IBA disregarded the IOC’s recommendations and allowed Russian fighters to compete in the 2023 world championships under the Russian flag. The governing body then disqualified Khelif only after Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva during the tournament.
___
Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
___
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
