PARIS- Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew mid-fight on Thursday after receiving a series of heavy blows from her Algerian opponent, Imane Khelif. Khelif, who was allowed to participate in the Games by the IOC despite failing a gender eligibility test at the previous year’s World Championships, delivered multiple punches within the first 30 seconds. A forceful right hook to Carini’s nose led her to signal her corner and withdraw from the match.
Her coach signaled she was withdrawing from the women’s welterweight round of 16 bout. A distraught Carini fell to her knees in the ring, sobbing and declining to shake Khelif’s hand after the referee declared the Algerian the winner.
“I am a fighter. My father taught me to be a warrior. When I am in the ring, I use that mindset, the mindset of a warrior, a winning mindset,” Carini told reporters after abandoning the bout. “This time I couldn’t make it.” I didn’t lose tonight, I just surrendered with maturity.”
Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting athletes were previously disqualified at the 2023 World Championships for not meeting the International Boxing Association’s eligibility criteria, which bars athletes with male XY chromosomes from participating in women’s categories.
The IOC’s Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-discrimination based on gender identity and sex variations provides federations with guidelines to promote inclusion and fairness in sports, including for athletes with Differences of Sexual Development (DSD). DSDs encompass a range of rare conditions related to genes, hormones, and reproductive organs, including cases where individuals with XY chromosomes and testosterone levels within the male range are raised as female.
Khelif described the bout as difficult.
“Insha’Allah for the second fight. I am very prepared because it’s been eight years of preparation,” she told reporters. “I need an Olympic medal here in Paris.”
Women’s sports categories exist in most sports in recognition of the clear advantage that going through male puberty gives an athlete. That advantage is not just through higher testosterone levels but also in muscle mass, skeletal advantage and faster twitch muscle.
A young female boxer has just had everything she’s worked and trained for snatched away because you allowed a male to get in the ring with her, “British author J.K Rowling wrote on X.
“#Paris2024 will be forever tarnished by this brutal injustice,” she added.
Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Carini’s bout against Khelif was not a fight among equals.
“I think that athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women’s competitions,” Meloni was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA.
Hungarian boxer Luca Anna Hamori , next to face Khelif in the ring, said she was not scared.
“I will go to the ring, and I will get my win. I trust my coaches and I trust myself,” Hamori said.
Carini was left nursing shattered dreams.
“I’m out, my dream is over,” she said. “So, I felt really sad, with a broken heart. It’s not right for my Olympics to end here, it’s not right for my dream to end here, because an athlete makes so many sacrifices.
“I’m not ashamed to say that I gave up, I’m not even afraid to go back to that ring
