Algerian boxer Imane Khelif’s historic Olympic win is a victory against hate

I’ve always loved watching the Olympics. It’s a rare opportunity for the world to come together and witness the height of human physical and mental strength. Here are people who have grafted for years to reach the absolute pinnacle of their careers, performing on the Olympic stage: the ultimate athletic achievement.

And in a world gripped by multiple horrific wars and in a country in the grips of racist violence, sport’s togetherness is something we need now more than ever before.

As a coach and former female competitive boxer with 12 years’ experience under my belt, I especially love watching women’s boxing. But I watched this year’s welterweight final with extra interest. On Friday (9 August), Algerian boxer Imane Khelif claimed a decisive unanimous victory – and a gold medal – in a one-sided bout against China’s Liu Yang.

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Khelif’s victory was all the more richly deserved because of the hellish treatment she has received at the hands of the world’s media.

Although relatively unknown before Paris 2024, the Algerian boxer became the focus of a media character assassination amidst a hugely public row about her gender. People were quick to jump to hateful conclusions without understanding the context or the facts.

But the fact is, despite the claims that spread like wildfire online, Imane Khelif was born a woman and has competed in elite international women’s boxing for many years. She has been beaten nine times, including most recently by my former teammate and 2022 world champion Amy Broadhurst. The International Boxing Association’s (IBA’s) decision to ban Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting from the 2023 world championships was, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), “sudden and arbitrary”.

Khelif fell victim to a “politically motivated culture war” (the IOC president’s words, not mine) in which social media and parts of the world’s press whipped itself up into a toxic, vitriolic frenzy, fuelled in no small part by the likes of Elon Musk and JK Rowling. Both waded into the “debate” armed with nothing but their own ill-informed opinions and intolerant views.

There are many parallels between this case and the racist violence that has swept the UK in recent weeks. In both cases, social media played a role in stirring up hatred, but what’s more alarming is that they have exposed more endemic, deep-rooted prejudices.

In the case of the UK riots, incitement to violence on social media and the acts that followed were a symptom of the nation’s wider problem of systemic racism, and the inaction of those in power to tackle it.

And in the case of Imane Khelif, it exposed the sickly underbelly of transphobia and misogyny in boxing and in society. People preferred to believe that Khelif was biologically male than accept she may just be a strong woman. And those that were convinced she was a man were quick to vilify her as a cheating, violent woman-hater, including the sport’s international governing body, the IBA, who posted a now-deleted cartoon on Instagram comparing Khelif’s bout with Italian Angela Carini to domestic violence.

I’m familiar with the uphill struggle of being a woman in boxing. Things have changed a lot since I first started, thanks to the tireless work of many trailblazing women in the sport, and I’m happy to have found a home in a progressive and open-minded gym. But we still have a long way to go.

The furore around Khelif and Lins’ gender shows how quick the world is to judge women and the open hostility towards people of marginalised genders. It shows that the boxing world – and the world at large – is still a difficult place to be trans.

But it’s not just about gender. Women athletes of colour have also disproportionately fallen foul of gender testing, facing more claims that they are biologically male or transgender than their white counterparts. This latest controversy has unearthed a trio of unsavoury attitudes that are endemic in society: misogyny, transphobia and racism.

So against this backdrop, I’m even happier to celebrate Khelif’s win. Because I know myself what it feels like to win despite it all.

I sobbed like a baby when my hand was raised for the first time after five back-to-back losses. The sweetest victories are the hardest fought, and I can only imagine how sweet Imane Khelif’s gold medal tastes after the hell she’s been through over the last few weeks.

Sport is supposed to bring us together, not tear us apart. And despite the initial surge of nasty rhetoric, it seems like this debacle is starting to do just that.

Overwhelmingly, it has been women who have attended Khelif’s bouts in Paris to support her, many of whom had never previously been interested in boxing. And in the boxing world, it’s been mostly women who have spoken in her support. These are the same women who were pitched against Khelif by the haters. They’ve seen through the divisive dogma.

So just like the communities across the country who came together to oppose far right violence, from Walthamstow to Southport to Bristol, we should all be united behind the achievement of this brave woman. She boxed her way to a gold medal in the face of the world’s online wrath, the full force of the media machine and bullying by boxing’s own institutional Goliaths.

The mental strength and self-belief that must have taken is extraordinary.

Sport is about pushing the boundaries of what is physically possible and celebrating our shared humanity. There’s no place for discrimination or prejudice of any kind. But sometimes it takes the story of a victory in the face of adversity to remind us that sport can bring us together. 

Ella Gilbert is a former competitive boxer with 12 years’ experience and has coached competitive amateur and recreational boxing for eight years. She is currently writing a book about women’s boxing.

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