A Hungarian sports official has come out and stated that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is not female. István Kovács, the European Vice President of the World Boxing Organization and former Secretary General of the International Boxing Association, told Hungarian press that he had warned the International Olympic Committee about males participating in women’s boxing as early as 2022, but that nothing was done.
In a shocking statement made to Magyar Nemzet yesterday, Kovács confirmed the speculation surrounding the Algerian boxer, adding that it had been known as early as 2022 that Khelif was biologically male.
“The problem was not with the level of Khelif’s testosterone, because that can be adjusted nowadays, but with the result of the gender test, which clearly revealed that the Algerian boxer is biologically male,” Kovács said in an interview with Magyar Nemzet, adding that a total of five boxers had been examined including Khelif by the International Boxing Association, and all of them “were indeed men.”
Kovács asserted that he personally reported the shocking result immediately to the International Olympics Committee, “but as unbelievable as it is, they have not responded to this to this day.” The retired world champion boxer also commented that he recently spoke with former women’s world champion Mária Kovács, who bitterly remarked that in modern women’s boxing, “there is a 20 percent chance that one of the athletes will suffer a testicular injury.”
Kovács added that he was actively discouraging Hungary’s Anna Luca Hámori from going ahead with her Olympic match against Khelif, which is set to take place on August 3. While Kovács said that he didn’t believe Khelif was a particularly good boxer, he expressed concerns that Hámori had not been properly trained to fight a male opponent.
“The biggest problem is that Hámori can only realize her big dream of winning a medal at the summer games at the first Olympics of her life if she beats a man. She was simply not trained for this,” Kovács said.
Despite the risks, Hámori has been taking it in stride, and even pushing back against Khelif at apparent risk of IOC sanctions. On August 2, Hámori posted a photo to her Instagram story showing an AI-generated image of a female boxer facing-off against a large, horned male devil.
The Algerian Olympic Committee submitted a complaint against Hámori to the IOC over her social media posts, and she was reportedly been forced to delete them and may have to apologize to Khelif.
These developments come as a wildfire of debate and discussion have surrounded the participation of Khelif in the women’s category. As first reported by Reduxx, Khelif is one of two individuals previously disqualified from the 2023 IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships for failing chromosomal testing.
Speaking to Reduxx, Marshi Smith, the co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, condemned the IOC after reviewing the shocking revelations made by Kovács.
“The cover-up and championing of male athletes in women’s Olympic sports is the greatest sports scandal of our lifetime,” Smith said. The Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) is a non-partisan network and advocacy group comprised of current and former collegiate and professional women athletes. Earlier this year, ICONS launched a lawsuit against the NCAA with one dozen female athletes challenging their policies allowing transgender athletes to compete against females and use female locker rooms in college sports.
“The IOC MUST reinstate sex verification testing TODAY to begin to prove their commitment to the rights of female athletes. They are impostors promoting gender parity while deliberately deceiving the public and athletes about the true sex of competitors in the world’s most elite and dangerous competition.”
In addition to demanding the reinstatement of sex testing at the Olympics, Smith, a former NCAA & PAC-10 Champion Swimmer, is also calling for a thorough investigation to be launched into the impact of the IOC’s policies.
“A full and thorough investigation is urgently required, and heads must roll within the IOC to account for this unthinkable injustice against women,” Smith says.
🚨Two Olympians competing as "female boxers" in Paris were previously disqualified from a women's boxing championship for having "XY chromosomes."
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) July 27, 2024
Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting have been accused of "pretending to be women" by @IBA_Boxing.https://t.co/oZSAzNoV7k
The Women’s World Boxing Championships took place in March of 2023 and was hosted in New Delhi, India. A total of 324 boxers from 64 nations competed during the 10-day trial, marking the largest participation in any iteration of the championship ever recorded.
However, the grand event was marred by controversy after Umar Kremlev, president of the IBA, announced the disqualification of multiple boxers from the championship.
Kremlev said that IBA executives had met towards the championship’s grand finale to discuss “fairness among athletes and professionalism,” after concerns were raised about the biological sex of some participants. Speaking to TASS News, he added that after “a series of DNA-tests,” the IBA “uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women.”
Among the known boxers disqualified from the championship was Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting and Algeria’s Imane Khelif. Neither are believed to be transgender, and are instead suspected to be impacted by Differences of Sexual Development.
Following our initial report, many claimed that Lin and Khelif’s disqualifications had been the result of abnormalities in their testosterone levels, but that they were biologically female. However, a subsequent statement by the IBA revealed that testosterone levels had not been the reason for their disqualification.
According to the IBA’s Technical Competition Rules, “woman/female/girl” is defined as “an individual with chromosome XX.” The IBA states that boxers will be subjected to tests to confirm whether they meet this definition, which serves as the gender eligibility criteria for female boxing.
In a statement released July 31, the IBA stated that Khelif and Lin had been provided the opportunity to appeal the disqualification at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Lin declined to do so, while Khelif submitted an appeal before withdrawing it.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport previously oversaw the case of South African runner Caster Semenya, who had accused World Athletics (then called IAAF) of having “discriminatory policies” concerning athletes with Differences of Sexual Development. Though he claimed to be a biological female, Semenya was found to have XY chromosomes. Most women, including elite female athletes, have natural testosterone levels of 0.12 to 1.79 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L), but Semenya has male gonads producing a normal level of testosterone for a male.
Male athletes with DSDs are sometimes actively sought out by national coaches because of their tremendous “natural” advantage over biological females.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, male runners with DSDs won all three top spots in the Women’s 800m race.