The Kremlin-backed boxing federation fuelling the Imane Khelif scandal
The Kremlin-backed boxing federation fuelling the Imane Khelif scandal
The allegations against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif were sparked by the IBA, a boxing organization led by a man with connections to Putin and the Kremlin.
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On Saturday, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won her quarter-final bout to guarantee a spot on the podium just days after questions about her gender identity surfaced, causing a wave of global outrage fuelled by online culture war panic and transphobes like “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling.
“I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female,” Khelif said, fighting back tears as she draped the Algerian flag around her shoulders.
“I dedicate this medal to the world, and to all the Arabs and I tell you, ‘Long live Algeria!’ ”
The debate surrounding Khelif’s participation at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris began after it was revealed that she allegedly failed an undisclosed “gender eligibility test” that resulted in her being disqualified from the world championships in February 2023.
At the time, the International Boxing Association (IBA), the Russian boxing organization that tested Khelif and hosts the World Championships, claimed that athletes who “pretended to be women” were excluded based on tests that showed “they have XY chromosomes.” (Women typically have XX chromosome pairs, and men typically have XY pairs.)
The debate was further inflamed Thursday after Angela Carini of Italy quit 46 seconds into her bout against Khelif, resulting in an automatic win for the Algerian boxer. Carini quit after two punches, refused to shake Khelif’s hand, and collapsed on the floor in tears. The scene drew outrage from athletes, politicians, and right-wing agitators who spread misinformation about Khelif’s gender identity.
Former President Donald Trump was among those who voiced his opinion on the matter, posting on Truth Social that: “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS!”
Khelif has never identified as a man, as transgender, or as intersex—which refers to people with both male and female sex characteristics.) She is also from Algeria, where it is illegal to transition. The International Olympic Committee has also come to the athlete’s defence, with IOC President Thomas Bach stating that Khelif’s status as a woman was “never in doubt.”
“Let’s be very clear here: We are talking about women’s boxing,” Bach said on Saturday. “We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised a woman, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women. And this is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman.”
It is important to note that Khelif had previously competed at the Tokyo Olympics, where she reached the quarterfinal stage without incident. The only time her identity as a woman has been questioned was when the IBA performed an unspecified gender eligibility test shortly after Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva, who was previously undefeated, at the 2023 world championships. At the time, Khelif referred to her disqualification as a “conspiracy.”
The suspicious timing of the test, combined with the lack of transparency around the results, should have raised immediate concerns, especially since the IBA is the only source of the allegations against Khelif. The IOC has also long been at odds with the IBA over a series of corruption scandals, accusations of poor governance, and worries about the organization’s president, Umar Kremlev, and his ties to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin—conflicts that led to the IBA being stripped of its authority to regulate Olympic boxing.
To further grasp how the IBA is leveraging the gender eligibility issue to challenge the IOC's handling of the Paris boxing tournament, it is essential to first examine the IBA's troubled history, including its numerous corruption scandals and ties to the Russian government, which could help explain how an Algerian boxer came to be at the centre of a global scandal.
The Rise of Umar Kremlev
In the wake of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, several damning investigation uncovered widespread evidence of corruption, bribery and match-fixing in amateur boxing. IBA president Wu Ching-kuo was found to have been directly responsible for allowing corruption to flourish and was subsequently banned for life from the sport in 2018.
However, the organization’s troubles did not end there.
In January 2018, IBA—then known as AIBA—named Gafur Rakhimov as its interim president, an alleged heroin trafficker who was placed under U.S. sanctions for providing “material support” to the Thieves-in-Laws, a notorious Eurasian criminal syndicate linked to illegal activity around the world.
Rakhimov, who was AIBA’s longest-serving vice-president, was also accused of being a member of the so-called ‘Brother’s Circle,’ an international criminal group involved in drug trafficking. Rakhimov has long denied any wrongdoing.