Not even the International Olympic Committee knows what a woman is.
The debate over biological males in female sports erupted on the biggest stage of all Thursday as Italy’s Olympic boxing hopeful Angela Carini conceded her match to Algerian fighter Imane Khelif, one of two boxers competing in Paris despite being disqualified at last year’s women’s world championships for failing gender tests.
Carini retreated to her corner after being punched in the face by an opponent who towered over her just 46 seconds into the quarterfinal bout, saying later that she felt “extreme pain” in her nose and that “I have never felt a punch like this.”
“It hurts so much. I am heartbroken,” she told reporters. “I went to the ring to honor my father. I was told a lot of times that I was a warrior, but I preferred to stop for my health.”
The episode dragged the IOC once again into the ongoing uproar over male-born athletes in female sports, three years after transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand caused a furor by competing against women in the Tokyo Olympics.
In a joint statement Thursday, the IOC and the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit defended the inclusion of Khelif and Taiwan boxer Lin Yu-ting, saying they had complied with all the eligibility rules, while critics accused the Olympics of sanctioning violence against women.
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“After 46 seconds and a few hits to the face by a male, Carini forfeited the fight,” All-American swimmer Riley Gaines wrote on X. “Call me crazy, but It’s almost as if women don’t want to be punched in the face by a male as the world watches and applauds.”
The Italian boxer declined to shake her opponent’s hand after her defeat was announced, then fell to her knees in the ring and began to cry. The images sparked a strong reaction in her home country, including a critical comment from conservative Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who told reporters that the match “did not seem on equal footing.”
“Athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to female competitions,” Meloni said.
The question of transgender competitors in women’s events has roiled the American sports scene for years. As it turns out, however, Thursday’s controversy may be more of a Caster Semenya than a Lia Thomas situation.
Algerian Football Media compared Khelif to the runner Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who unsuccessfully challenged the 2018 World Athletics restrictions on athletes with a “Difference of Sexual Development” known as 46, XY from elite women’s meets.
Individuals with 46, XY DSD are often born with ambiguous genitalia and raised as girls, but they have internal testes, and in their teen years, undergo male puberty.
IOC spokesperson Mark Adams insisted at Thursday’s press conference that “this is not a transgender issue.”
“I know you know that, but I think there has been some misreporting on this,” Adams said. “I think it’s very important to say that this is not a transgender issue. These women have been competing in competitions for many years.”
But complaints about runners in the female category who had apparently undergone male puberty prompted World Athletics to implement rules requiring such athletes to keep their testosterone in serum under set limits for at least 24 months before competition.
The International Boxing Association said Wednesday it disqualified Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin from last year’s Women’s World Championships for failing sex tests that were not based on testosterone levels.
“Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential,” the association said. “This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.”
The association’s president told the Russian news agency Tass last year that the two athletes took DNA tests and “it was proven that they have XY chromosomes.”
Last year, however, the IOC banished the IBA as the sport’s governing body over judging integrity and financial issues, replacing it with the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit, an ad hoc committee with no clear gender policy.
Joint Paris 2024 Boxing Unit/IOC Statementhttps://t.co/22yVzxFuLd pic.twitter.com/fZvgsW8OOi
— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) August 1, 2024
In its statement Thursday, the IOC criticized the association’s decision to disqualify the athletes, blaming the move for fueling the “aggression against these two athletes.”
“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure — especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competitions for many years,” the statement said. “Such an approach is contrary to good governance.”
The Algerian Olympic and Sports Committee (COA) denounced Wednesday what it called the “lies” and “malicious and unethical attacks directed against our distinguished athlete, Imane Khelif, by certain foreign media.”
“These attempts at defamation, based on lies, are completely unfair, especially at a crucial time when she is preparing for the Olympic Games, the peak of her career,” the statement said. “The COA has taken all necessary measures to protect our champion.”
Advocates for women’s sports said the situation could be resolved if the IOC would mandate gender-verification testing, a requirement that was dropped at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and opened the door to transgender athletes in the women’s category.
In 2021, the IOC reacted to criticism over Hubbard’s participation in women’s weightlifting by placing the international sports governing bodies in charge of their own transgender-eligibility criteria.
“Each sport needs to deal with its issues,” Adams said. “They know their sports and their disciplines the best, and you need to tailor the testing and so on.”
He also made it clear that the IOC has no intention of resuming gender-verification testing.
“I think we’re all agreed, I hope we’re all agreed, that we’re not calling for people to go back to the bad old days of sex testing, which was a terrible, terrible thing to do,” he said. “I’m sure we’re all agreed that is not the way forward in this situation.”
Carini declined to weigh in on the controversy, saying that “I am not here to judge or pass judgment.”
“If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide,” she said. “I just did my job as a boxer. I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometer.”
But Italian sports officials were more ambivalent.
Italian boxing coach Emanuele Renzini said the team had offered Carini had been given the option of not competing against her Algerian rival, the Reuters news agency reported.
“But she told me, ’No, this is my Olympics, I struggled to be here, I want to fight for my medal’. So she was very determined to do it. I supported her. I didn’t imagine such an outcome.”
But Italian Family and Equal Opportunities Minister Eugenia Roccella said in a statement it was “surprising that there are no certain, strict, uniform criteria at the international level, and that there can be a suspicion, and far more than a suspicion, of an unfair and potentially dangerous contest for one of the contenders at the Olympics, an event that symbolizes sporting fairness.”
Lin is scheduled to fight Friday against Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova after receiving a first-round bye.
• This article was based in part on wire service reports.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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