Algerian boxer at center of gender controversy on track to win Olympic medal

Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer whose gender has been questioned, is set to win an Olympic medal at the Paris Olympics after defeating Hungary’s Luca Anna Hamori 5-0 in the quarter-finals.

Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, a boxer from Taiwan, who also won her Olympic quarter-final match, were both disqualified from last year’s world championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for failing to meet gender eligibility tests. The IBA made this last-minute decision after alleging that DNA tests showed the athletes had XY chromosomes.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which ended blanket sex testing in 1999, questioned the accuracy of the IBA tests and approved both boxers for the Paris Olympics.

The IBA has been embroiled in scandals for years. U.S. officials have accused the association of deep ties to Russian organized crime and heroin trafficking, as reported by PBS. Last year, the IOC permanently banned the IBA from the Olympics following a series of corruption scandals.

In a statement released on Saturday, IOC president Thomas Bach stated "We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised as a woman, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as a woman. This is the clear definition of a woman."

According to the BBC, the IBA has announced it will hold a press conference to explain why both athletes were disqualified from the 2023 championships.

Khelif will enter the ring to fight Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng in the semi-finals on August 6^th.