The gender of Algeria’s Imane Khelif has been a topic of conversation following an incident at the Olympic Games.
A single blow from Algeria’s Imane Khelif made her Italian opponent Angela Carini throw in the towel, explaining she’d “never been hit so hard” in her life.
This led to outrage as supporters of Carini accused of Khelif of being “biologically male”.
Carini’s reaction, combined with Khelif’s disqualification from last year’s women’s World Championships, has reignited the row around who should be able to compete in women’s sports.
The organisers, the International Boxing Association (IBA), said Imane Khelif and another boxer Lin Yu-ting did not meet the “required eligibility criteria” for the female category, later claiming the pair were found to have XY chromosomes.
The International Olympic Committee has accused the IBA of disqualifying the pair based on an “arbitrary decision” with “no due process,” suggesting no scientific tests were carried out as part of the decision.
However, childhood photos of Khelif, from Conservative Algeria, shows she grew up as a girl.
Photos of her and her family show her as a young girl in female clothes, with her supporters saying she has always been a girl who just happens to have elevated testosterone and should not be made to suffer for it.
Khelif, who does not identify as either transgender or intersex, is not believed to have commented directly on the qualification row but alluded to it last month when she described 2023 as a difficult year.
Asked how she coped with missing the World Championships she told broadcaster Canal Algérie: “It was a tough blow for me but I came back stronger to show my strength and determination and show the whole world the brave woman who is Imane Khelif.”
The 25-year-old also told of the hardships she suffered trying to break out of childhood poverty and make it as a boxer, describing her story as “impressive”.
Imane grew up in a rural village in Tiaret in western Algeria, a country where opportunities for girls in sport are limited.
She was a keen and talented footballer until the age of 16.
