Footage of a boxer – who has been allowed to compete in the Olympics – landing brutal shots on an opponent in the women’s boxing has emerged on social media.
Two boxers who were banned from the world championships for being deemed biologically male have been cleared to compete at the Olympics as women.
A row has erupted in Paris after it emerged that Imane Khelif, of Algeria, and Lin Yu-Ting, of Taiwan, were thrown out of the tournament last year amid questions over their biological sex.
A video showed Khelif landing heavy shots to the head of her Mexican opponent Brianda Tamara back in December 2022.
The caption of the video told fans to ‘note the force of the punching’ displayed by Khelif, as she unloaded on her opponent in a flurry of punches.
After the disqualification, Mexico’s Tamara came forward with her own experience of fighting Khelif earlier in the tournament.
‘When I fought with her I felt very out of my depth,’ she wrote on X. ‘Her blows hurt me a lot, I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized.’
Both Khelif and Yu-Ting were disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in March 2023 in New Delhi, after a series of DNA tests were ordered amid concerns over the sex of some of those taking part.
At the time Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA), claimed the tests had proven the athletes – including Khelif and Yu-Ting – had ‘XY chromosomes’.
He added that they ‘uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women’.
But the IBA has been stripped of the right to run Olympic boxing competitions amid concerns over governance and the IOC say all athletes involved are eligible to compete, with current rules viewed as more relaxed than those of the IBA.
Following last year’s ban, the Algerian Olympic Committee hit back, claiming the disqualification was part of a ‘conspiracy’ to stop them from winning a gold meal and said ‘medical reasons’ were behind high testosterone levels.
