Australian boxer Anja Stridsman is one of only nine female boxers who have been able to defeat Algerian Imane Khelif in the ring since she made her debut in 2018.
Khelif will soon fight for a gold medal in the women’s welterweight class at the Paris Olympics, where she has been embroiled in controversy surrounding her gender.
Her opening-round opponent, Italy’s Angela Carini, threw in the towel 46 seconds into the bout, claiming she had never been hit that hard.
2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Stridsman, who defeated Khelif in 2019, says what the Algerian looks or punches like should not matter.
“I do remember people saying to me: ‘oh, she looks like a bloke. You know, you’re fighting a bloke’, which, I think is quite ignorant and stupid,” Stridsman told 7.30.
She says that Khelif in the last five years has improved dramatically from the boxer she was.
“I remember not being very impressed with her, thinking that she wasn’t using her reach, you know, she didn’t have a good jab,” Stridsman said.
Speculation around Khelif’s gender has led to a global debate with politicians and commentators weighing in.
In 2023, Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting were both disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA), which claimed the pair had failed gender eligibility tests.
Wall Street Journal journalist Jared Diamond says there is not enough information about what tests were undertaken.
“We don’t exactly know the validity of these gender tests,” Diamond said.
“The IOC considers them illegitimate. We also know that these tests on Imane Khelif were done … and the results came out days after she defeated a Russian boxer that had been undefeated before that, which is certainly curious timing in the eyes of many people.”
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) withdrew its recognition of the IBA last year after it failed to implement reforms following its suspension in 2019 over governance issues and alleged corruption.
Following the invasion of Ukraine, the IOC put further restrictions on Russia, forcing its athletes to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes.
Diamond believes the governance issues at the IBA have prompted the IOC to wholly dismiss the organisation and its claims about Khelif and Lin.
“In the eyes of the IBA, they are not eligible to compete as women,” he said.
“So the IBA is sort of using the fact that they are allowed to compete in the Olympics as further opportunity to sort of sow discord in the Games. And that’s [what] we’ve known for months, years, really, that Russia was, let’s say, unhappy with the Olympics, and would try to sort of sow that discord,” he said.
A need for measured discussion
Millicent Agboegbulem is Australia’s super welterweight champion and won a bronze medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She has watched the unfolding drama and wants more clarity on Khelif’s eligibility.
“In my years of boxing, I’ve never seen any woman punch as hard as the boxer [Khelif] I saw in the ring,” Agboegbulem said.
As it stands, the IOC does not recognise a governing body for boxing at the Olympics and it’s not yet known what the arrangements will be at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
If the sport stays in the Games, some are calling for stricter rules around gender issues. Stridsman says while the discussion needs to be had, it should be done in a more respectful way than what has occurred during the Paris Games.
“We need to create a forum where we can have this discussion in a measured way. But right now, we’re just throwing shit at each other,” she said.
abc News
