‘My Dignity and My Honor Is Above Everything.’ Boxer Imane Khelif Addresses Gender Controversy After Winning Olympic Gold

In a unanimous decision, Imane Khelif from Algeria won gold in the women's welterweight division in Paris.

Khelif has been battling both in and out of the ring as a boxing organization questioned her eligibility to fight in the women’s division, despite the fact that she has done so for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics, where she finished fifth.

With her victory in Paris, Khelif said “I sent them a single message with this gold medal and I say my dignity and my honor is above everything.”

Khelif’s bout was over in 11 minutes, but it wasn’t so much the skill she showed in the ring or the critical punches she landed against her opponent, Yang Liu of China, that mattered. It was more than that.

It was more than that for Khelif, who, with her mother, sold scrap metal and couscous in their rural village in western Algeria to raise the money she needed for bus fare to another village 10 km away to train with a coach. “I am from a very small village and a very poor family in Algeria,” she said. “I was born and raised in poor neighborhoods but my family was always proud of me.”

It was more than that for her family, watching back home, who are concerned for her safety since Khelif became the target of unfounded accusations about whether or not she is a woman; resulting in a firestorm of opinions and speculations that she ultimately called bullying.

And it was more than that for the thousands of women filling a Roland Garros court where the bout was held, for whom Khelif has become more than an athlete under fire. She has become a symbol of empowerment for women in a country where they only recently emerged from a social and legal patriarchy.

“She is a model for women. She has been denigrated, and that is why it is important to support her,” says Sabrina Djemoui, an Algerian who lives in Paris and brought her son to the match. “Algerians have come in groups to support her, and during her semifinal you could hear the chants of ‘Imane, Imane, Imane.’ She represents Algeria and women’s sports.”

Those chants filled the Roland Garros court again during Khelif’s gold-medal bout. In the last few seconds of the third round, Khelif, sensing she had connected with more jabs than Yang, began dancing. After she was declared the gold medalist, Khelif broke into her now signature jig in the middle of the ring, pumping her legs up and down. “It’s a dance made by my friend and supporter—he is a football player in Algeria,” she said. “I am always talking to him with this dance. When he is playing football, he does the move and when I win I also [do] the move; it’s [a message] from me to him, and from him to me as well.”

One of her coaches put her on his shoulders and paraded her around the ring, to the delight of the Algerian fans in attendance.

“I’m very happy. For eight years, this has been my dream and I’m now the Olympic champion and gold medalist,” Khelif said. “I’ve worked for eight years, no sleep.”

The legacy of that effort will certainly extend outside of the ring. Older women who came to watch her box see her as an important example for future generations, and younger girls already view her as an inspiration. “She is a woman and she is strong,” says teenager Yuna Amrane, who came draped in an Algerian flag. Adni Belhirat, equally bedecked to express her pride in her country, agreed. “On social media she was discriminated, and she deserves the best,” she says.

The only two medals for Algeria at the Paris Olympics so far are gold; both won by women. Khelif's gold was the first Olympic medal for the country in boxing, and the other, from gymnast Kaylia Nemour in uneven bars, was the first for Algeria in gymnastics.

Khelif likely never anticipated that her journey to the Olympics would be so contentious. Last year, the International Boxing Association (IBA), the sport’s international governing body, disqualified Khelif from the world championships, claiming she failed eligibility tests to fight in the women’s division—despite the fact that she has fought as a woman for years. Neither Khelif nor the IBA have provided more details on exactly what those tests were, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) abandoned sex testing in 1999, recognizing that biologically, there are no definitive “tests” to conclusively determine gender, since chromosomes, hormones and genitalia can vary among individuals. The IOC has banned the IBA over issues about the organization’s funding and governance, and IOC president Thomas Bach has previously warned that the sport risks being excluded from future Olympics if reforms aren’t made.

“Since 2018 I have been boxing under the umbrella of the IBA and they know me very well,” she said. “They know what I am capable of, they know how I developed over the years. But now they are not recognized any more. They hate me and I don’t know why; I really don’t know why.”

Earlier in Paris, Khelif praised the Bach for allowing her to compete in Paris, despite the allegations made by the IBA. “I fully qualified to take part in this competition. I am a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived as a woman and I competed as a woman,” she said. “There is no doubt about that.” That hasn’t stopped the IBA from continuing to insist she failed eligibility tests, including at a press conference the group held in Paris in a failed attempt to justify its decision last year.

Khelif herself described the accusations directed against her as bullying. “My message to the whole world is that they should commit to the Olympic principles and avoid bullying; they should not bully people. We are in the Olympics to perform as athletes, and to perform for our audience and our families. I hope we will not see any similar attacks in future Olympics.”

Her story highlights how much scrutiny is focused on Olympic athletes, and how rumors and lies can swirl out of control on social media. But her case also illustrates a growing need for more guidance and standardization in the way groups like the IOC make determinations about gender, which would go a long way toward squashing unfounded speculation such as occurred with Khelif. Dr. Eric Vilain, director of the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science at the University of California, Irvine, has served on an IOC committee that provided a framework for sports bodies to address issues such as hyperandrogenism, or higher levels of male sex hormones in women. He says while the IOC’s support of Khelif is critical, they could in the future prevent the firestorm of questions Khelif faced by being clearer about the criteria they used in allowing her to fight in Paris. “Biologically or scientifically it’s not possible to come up with one single definition of sex,” he says. “So I hope [the IOC] comes up with some explanation [for their decision in allowing Khelif to fight] so that we know how they reasoned.”

That could help to set useful precedent in elite sports so that in the future, athletes like Khelif will be spared the hurtful attacks that have dogged her throughout her Olympic experience. Khelif used the criticism to fuel victory after victory in Paris, culminating in her gold medal bout. “I call them enemies of success,” Khelif said of her detractors. “And of course that gives my success a special taste because of these attacks.”