VILLEPINTE, France – There is no doubt that the next time we do this in Los Angeles, Olympic boxing will look different than it did on Saturday: A Young woman from rural Algeria who has spent 48 hours in the middle of a International firestorma voracious media shouting questions as she walked around protected by her trainers, visibly sobbing after winning a big fight, and an Olympic delegation from the loser’s country suggesting in the most diplomatic way possible that they didn’t think any of this was legitimate.
This cannot happen again.
Imane KhelifThe mere presence of ‘s here has exposed it, the marginalised boxing officials clinking vodka glasses in Moscow have ensured it and the lack of accountability on social media has confirmed it.
IOC management Paris Olympics The boxing tournament has turned out to be a failure. It is a failure of anticipation, communication and clarity, and the consequences have allowed the Russians to carry out a psychological operation on the world that will turn each subsequent competition into a witch hunt for genitals and chromosomes.
Despite what is now irrefutable evidence that Khelif was born a woman in Algeria, has lived as a woman, and knows nothing about herself beyond being a woman, enough of the world is now convinced that she does not deserve to be in the Olympics that it is impossible for anyone to come out of here a winner.
It’s a circus. And now that Khelif is just two wins away from the gold medal after… Defeating Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary This is only going to get worse on Saturday.
Even if he hasn’t done anything wrong, even if there is no evidence that he is anything other than what he says and believes he is.
“We are 100 percent convinced that every fight should be decided on the field of play, or in this case in the ring,” said Balazs Furjes, a senior official in Viktor Orban’s far-right government who serves as the IOC representative in Hungary. “Therefore, neither Anna Luca nor I nor the committee could choose not to fight.”
“We Hungarians are always ready to fight bravely, and that is what we have just seen. We are a proud founding nation of the International Olympic Committee, we are a long-standing and loyal member. Of course, every competition has its consequences. And like any other competition, these will be evaluated after the Games. And as loyal members of the IOC, we are 100 percent convinced that the IOC will make the right decisions.”
All in all, it was a fairly measured fight, considering the political benefit Orban’s Hungary has in claiming a foul and making everything look bad. Even Hamori said he accepted that his unanimous decision loss to Khalif was a fair fight, despite the Hungarians reportedly protesting before the bout.
But it is also unusual for an IOC member to make such statements in the press area after an Olympic event. The message was unequivocal. There is now pressure to do something about boxing in the future.
This is where the IOC failed itself and, above all, failed Khalif and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan.
They should have known that the International Boxing Association, which has been completely banned from the Olympics for being a corrupt and wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian government, has been eager for revenge.
Even if the IOC gives no credence to the so-called “gender tests” the IBA used to disqualify Khalif and Lin from their world championships in 2023 — and there is every reason to be skeptical about the Russians’ motives in administering those tests midway through that tournament — they knew this information was out there.
If they didn’t anticipate that it would only take one coup for this to become the biggest story of the Olympics, given the amount of anti-trans rhetoric fueling right-wing politics in places like the US and Britain, they’re not very familiar with how things work in 2024.
Best guess: IOC officials sat in their offices in Switzerland and figured that since these two women are not transgender, are in fact eligible to compete in the Olympics under current standards, and had previously participated in international competitions without controversy, it wouldn’t become an issue.
Oops.
Because the problem is that with these anti-trans crusaders, no answer is good enough. They introduce bills in state legislatures that want to check girls’ genitals before they go play basketball or volleyball. But then you get a case like Khalif’s, where it’s very clear that he has female body parts: his The father was interviewed on Saturday They show a birth certificate that identifies them as female and want a chromosome test. If they get it, they will want a full lab analysis of every strand of DNA in their bodies.
And if you let them win, if you let them think they’re right, they’ll never stop. They’ll want answers about every tennis player with unusually broad shoulders, every golfer with an elongated jaw, or every basketball player with a suspiciously deep voice.
It’s not just a bad idea, it’s dystopian what’s happening here.
Because you have to understand that this is not about justice. Justice does not exist in sports, it never has and it never will. Their crusade is about power and an ideology that demands that women conform to their idea of what a woman should be.
The IOC’s failure to foresee all this, and then be naive enough to think it can appease people who have convinced themselves that purity in women’s sports is the greatest struggle of 21st-century civilization, leaves them with two options: find someone who can manage this tournament in 2028 or rid boxing of the Olympics.
As things stand now, they left the door open and the Russians broke through it with a psychological operation. You saw what the IBA did, didn’t you? offering the same $50,000 prize money from an Olympic gold medal winner to the Italian fighter elevated to heroine status among America’s far-right and anti-trans warriors after losing to Khalif.
That’s $50,000 for 46 seconds in the ring, one punch, and some post-fight drama that set the world on fire.
It was not an act of that magnitude. It is perhaps the largest investment in a disinformation campaign in the history of humanity.
Now someone has to pick up the pieces.
It could be World Boxing, a group formed in 2023 with hopes of becoming the new Olympic boxing federation and sanctioning the tournament for 2028. Its statement to USA TODAY Sports reads as follows:
“At World Boxing, boxers come first for us and athlete safety is absolutely paramount. We have long recognised that gender clarity is an extremely complex issue, with significant welfare concerns and strongly held opinions, and our Medical Committee is in the process of examining all aspects of this area so that we can develop a policy that prioritises boxer health and ensures sporting integrity, whilst striving to ensure that the sport is as inclusive as possible.”
It’s not very specific, but it’s a start.
The last few days have shown that sport has a long way to go and that there are forces in this world that will not stop until every athlete who looks different from what they think a woman should look like is the subject of global propaganda and scorn.
But whatever they do to fix this broken sport, they have to make sure a scene like Saturday’s never happens again.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: The rampant controversy surrounding Olympic boxer Imane Khelif should not happen again | Opinion