If they were anyone else but who they are, Imane Khalif of Algiera and Lin Yu-Ting of Chinese Taipei would be two afterthoughts who would be competing tomorrow for Olympic gold in women’s boxing on the more obscure feeds of the NBC Universal family of networks and platforms.
But, of course, they ARE who they are, and the fact that millions somehow can’t quite accept that reality has made them world renowned and perhaps the most polarizing and transcendent stories of an otherwise glorious and successful 2024 Paris Olympics.
As you should already know, this all started roughly a week aho when Khalif bludgeoned her first opponent, Italy’s Angela Carini, within less than a minute, sending Carini into a fit of despair and resentment, as NBC NEW YORK and THE ASSOCIATED PRESS noted in a recap story from earlier this morning:
Carini and Khelif had only a few punch exchanges before Carini abandoned it, an extremely unusual occurrence in Olympic boxing. Carini’s headgear apparently became dislodged twice before she quit.
Carini refused to shake Khelif’s hand after the decision was announced, and she cried in the ring before leaving. Afterward, a still-tearful Carini said she quit because of intense pain in her nose after the opening punches. Carini, who had a spot of blood on her trunks, said she wasn’t making a political statement and was not refusing to fight Khelif. “I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough,’ because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match,” Carini said.
Carini isn’t the first boxer who has had his or her proverbial ass whupped in the ring and cried about it. Roberto Duran had his “no mas” moment. An aging Muhammad Ali was embarassed by Larry Holmes. Even the theoretically Doomsday-like Mike Tyson had his Buster Douglas comeuppance.
But it just so happens that once some question marks arose about what Khelif is biologically composed of, she became a magnet for controversy, enough so that perhaps the whiniest non-Olympian around these days, someone who doesn’t compete in head-to-head sports, felt obligated to share her thoughts, as THE DAILY MAIL’s Oliver Salt obligatorially reported:
Riley Gaines has accused Olympic chiefs of ‘glorifying male violence against women’ amid the controversy surrounding Algerian boxer Imane Khelif’s gender. Gaines, the ex-college swimmer who has long advocated for biological genders to be respected in sports after losing races to transgender swimmer Lia Thomas‘ in the past, has become the latest to hit out at Khelif’s inclusion at the Olympics.
She shared a clip of Khelif battering Carini into submission on X and wrote alongside it: ‘Call me crazy, but It’s almost as if women don’t want to be punched in the face by a male as the world watches and applauds.
‘This is glorified male violence against women.’
And with the likes of other boxing and biology genuises like Elon Musk and J.K. Rowling piling on, it turned out she wasn’t the only female boxer that made their blood pressure and political ignorance even redder than usual. We learned than Lin was also competing, although her opponents weren’t quite as vocal about their losses. The likes of those who unconditionally sympathize with Gaines was further inflamed when the organization that previously disallowed both women’s participation in international boxing competitions staged a press conference earlier this week which had TIME’s Sean Gregory rolling his eyes in disbelief even more than Gaines, Musk and Rowling:
The International Boxing Association (IBA), which has spent these Olympics ripping the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its president, Thomas Bach, and calling into question the gender eligibility of two boxers in the competition—igniting international controversy and exposing the boxers to torrents of online abuse—came to Paris this morning to hold a press conference in an ornate, airless ballroom with mirrors and a cracked ceiling. The task at hand, supposedly, was to provide documentary evidence that Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Chinese Taipei, who through a pair of preliminary-round victories are now assured at least a bronze medal at the Paris Games, do not belong in the women’s boxing category. If anything, the IBA threw even more confusion into the mix—and is likely to expose Khelif and Yu-Ting to more animosity. And if the organization was trying to boost its bona fides and prove it should be running boxing in the Olympics, the IBA failed miserably on that front.
First of all, this rogue press event—held during the heat of competition, overshadowing exploits on the field of play—started about an hour late, with no official explanation granted. There was chirping that Umar Kremlev, the president of the IBA, was going to make a surprise appearance remotely, and technicians were working on the Russian translation capabilities.
Kremlev finally appeared on an electronic screen behind the live speakers. But no one could hear him as he spoke, a 2020-era Zoom issue (maybe he was muted). Twice during the approximately 90-minute session of filibustering, chaotic press questioning, and overall unpleasantness, the microphone feedback sent shudders through the hearts of the some 100 reporters packed into a sweaty room. AV errors aside, the more serious problem was the messaging.
Today Kremlev offered an opening “statement” that was a rambling, nearly 20-minute bizarre airing of grievances. Rather than address the subject at hand, he started by criticizing the opening ceremonies, an event in everyone’s rearview mirror. “As a Christian, the Olympic opening ceremony was something horrible,” he said in Russian through an interpreter. “It was horrible for Christians and Muslim people around the world, all people with a spiritual life.”
And there you have it. In the same spirit of blissful, cross-wavering ignorance that somehow equated that ceremony, a depiction of the Feast of Dionysius with The Last Supper, Lin and Khalif somehow became either gay, trans or both, and therefore should be banned. Facts be damned. It’s as is Dinesh DiSouza found his way into this debate.
Look, geniuses. They’re WOMEN. They didn’t even use performance-enhancing drugs. And they compete in a sport where finesse and strategy are as, if not, more important than brute strength. Where plenty of Davids–of either gender–have toppled Goliaths.
Besides, look at their all-time records, against women as biologically pure as Gaines:
Khalif: 44 (1 KO)-9
Lin: 41 (1 KO)-14
So somehow, in 23 different bouts, a different WOMAN emerged victorious. In 83 of 85 of their victories a team of judges with far less bias and inability to articulate than the IBA determined that these WOMEN won fair and square.
And as THE SUN’s Chisanga Malata reported earlier this morning, Lin in particular is going to have her work cut out for her if she’s going to go home with gold:
Standing between the 28-year-old – who has been at the centre of a gender row along with Algeria’s Imane Khelif – and glory at Paris 2024 is Poland‘s Julia Szeremeta.
The 20-year-old has booked her place in the final with wins over Venezuela’s Omailyn Alcala, Australia‘s Tina Rahimi, Puerto Rico’s Ashelyann Lozada and the Philippines’s Nestthy Petecio. And she’s done so in a less-than-orthodox style, which includes plenty of showboating. Szeremeta has showboated her way to the gold medal match, putting her hands down and even jumping up in the air in fights.
And Khelif, that Arab heathen, isn’t getting a cakewalk, either, as NBC NEW YORK reminded:
She’ll face China’s Yang Liu in the women’s welterweight gold medal match at 4:51 p.m. ET Friday. Liu, 32 won a gold medal at the 2023 World Championships.
We probably shouldn’t be paying as much attention to these battles as they would otherwise deserve. There’s more consequential events involving Americans going on. But, nope, those that bleed far more red than white and blue will be watching, and undoubtedly rooting like mad for Poland and China. How inconvenient a truth is that.
If these women emerge victorious, they will have completed a challenging gauntlet that few of either gender can accomplish. And they will have earned every bit of their medal, yes, even if it somehow turns out to be silver.
You can probably guess who I’ll be rooting for in these situations. And like any good boxing match, there’s always an opportunity for a victor to throw out a challenge in a press conference for an ensuing bout that will likely earn millions in pay-per-view.
How’s about one or both of them challenging Riley Gaines?
Courage…