PARIS – An Italian boxer abandoned her bout at the Paris Olympics after only 46 seconds on Thursday, refusing to continue after taking a heavy punch from an Algerian opponent who had been disqualified from last year’s world championships over questions about her eligibility to compete in women’s sports.
The Italian boxer, Angela Carini, withdrew after her Algerian opponent, Imane Khelif, landed a powerful blow that struck Carini square in the face. Carini paused for a moment, then turned her back to Khelif and walked to her corner.
Her coaches quickly signaled that she would not continue, and the referee stopped the fight.
The Italian threw her helmet onto the floor as the clash was abandoned, yelling: “This is unjust.”
Italy’s Angela Carini dropped to her knees in tears after losing the fight to her Algerian opponent Imane Khelif in just 46 seconds.
The 25-year-old refused the handshake and fell to the canvas sobbing having received just two punches from Khelif – who had been banned from a major boxing contest before the Olympics.
Khelif was thrown out of last year’s world championships after failing testosterone tests carried out to establish gender qualification.
After the match was stopped, the referee raised Khelif’s hand in the air. But a visibly furious Carini yanked her own hand away from the fight official and walked off.
Ignoring the Algerian, the Italian fighter then plunged to her knees and burst into tears as she said she had never felt such strong blows in a contest before.
Speaking after the match, the heartbroken Italian said: “I’m used to suffering. I’ve never taken a punch like that, it’s impossible to continue..
“After the second punch, after years of experience, I felt a strong pain in the nose. I said enough, because I didn’t want. I couldn’t finish the fight after the punch to the nose. So it was better to put an end to it…
“I got into the ring to fight. But I didn’t feel like it anymore after the first minute. I started to feel a strong pain in my nose. I didn’t give up, but a punch hurt too much and so I said enough. I’m leaving with my head held high..”
Khelif stopped briefly to speak to the BBC: “I am here for gold,” the Algerian said. “I will fight anybody, I will fight them all.”
Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, expressed her concern about what had happened. “Angela Carini rightly followed her instincts and prioritised her physical safety, but she and other female athletes should not have been exposed to this physical and psychological violence based on their sex,” she tweeted.
Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, weighed in, saying: “I think that athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women’s competitions … from my point of view it was not an even contest.”
Before the fight The International Olympic Committee (IOC) came under fire for permitting Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan to compete in the women’s category at these Games. Lin is due to face Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova in a featherweight bout in Paris on Friday.
Last year both fighters were disqualified from the world championships, with the International Boxing Association (IBA) president, Umar Kremlev, saying that DNA tests had “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded”. XY is the combination of chromosomes in males, while XX is the combination in females.
But last night the IOC issued a statement that confirmed that said both boxers had “complied” with its entry regulations and “have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category”.
“As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport,” it added.
The IOC also accused the IBA of changing its gender rules in the middle of the 2023 world championships. “The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years,” it said. “Such an approach is contrary to good governance.”
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