Thursday saw Algeria’s Imane Khelif advance in the women’s 66-kilogram boxing division, earning her first Olympic victory in Paris.
But only 46 seconds into the fight, her opponent, Italian fighter Angela Carini, withdrew, bringing the contest to a premature halt.
“I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough.'” Carini gave this explanation for her withdrawal to BBC Sports.
After the Algerian was pronounced the winner by the referee, the Italian fighter sobbed and exited the ring without shaking her opponent’s hand.
The contest has received a lot of interest because Imane Khelif’s eligibility to compete in women’s boxing has recently come under investigation.
Khelif and another fighter from Taiwan, Lin Yu-ting, were reportedly disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi, according to recurrent reports. Officials in the sport claimed at the time that the fighters’ male chromosomes caused them to fail an undisclosed test.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has denounced the retaliation against Khelif and Lin, has upheld Khelif’s ability to compete. According to the IOC,
“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure.”
The committee also made it clear that an athlete’s gender eligibility for the Olympics in Paris is determined by their passport.
The Minister of Youth and Sports for Algeria, Abderrahmane Hammad, also denounced what he described as “baseless attacks” on Khelif, calling them “cowardly attempts to tarnish her reputation.”
Imane Khelif has never directly addressed the matter and has always competed as a woman, including at the Olympics in Tokyo. Using Instagram to celebrate her win, she posted a picture from the battle along with the caption, “first Victory.”
Imane Khelif’s next match is against Hungary’s Luca Anna Hamori in the quarterfinals on Saturday.