‘Angela Carini deserves better’: Lauren Boebert launches crowdfund campaign for female Olympic boxer

Angela Carini won’t win a gold medal, but a U.S. Congresswoman thinks she should get the money Italy gives its gold medalists.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, started a crowdfund campaign Thursday to raise $196,000 for the Italian boxer whose Olympic dream ended at the hands of an Algerian fighter who was banned from the last boxing world championships for failing a sex test.

“Italy pays their Olympic athletes $196,000 for a gold medal. While the IOC is the only organization that can truly right this wrong, I believe we can do our part. Every dollar contributed will go directly to Angela Carini. Thank you for joining me in providing a small encouragement to this strong, deserving woman!” Ms. Boebert wrote on the campaign page.

As of shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday, the campaign “Standing with Angela Carini!” at GiveSendGo had raised over $52,000 from more than 1,300 donors.

Ms. Boebert said that Ms. Carini “deserves better” than the lopsided 46-second fight with Imane Khelif of Algeria.

Ms. Khelif battered Ms. Carini with punches that she said were harder than anything she’d ever felt fighting women, and the contest was overwhelmingly blasted by fighters who commented on social media.

After Thursday’s fight was stopped and the result announced, Ms. Carini fell to her knees in the ring in tears, declined to shake Ms. Khelif’s hand and decried the bout as an injustice.

Ms. Khelif is not transgender — which is illegal in overwhelmingly Muslim Algeria.

But the fighter was disqualified from the last boxing world championships, reportedly for testing positive for XY chromosomes and having testosterone levels typical of a man.

Algerian sports officials defended her by citing the case of Caster 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 are often born with ambiguous or female genitalia and raised as girls. But they also have internal testes, undergo male puberty and have male-typical hormone levels — and thus the body of a man.