It’s crazy how much you can project into a victory. This Thursday 1is August 2024, inside the Villepinte Exhibition Center (Seine-Saint-Denis), Imane Khelif shoots a direct shot at the nose of her Italian opponent, Angela Carini, who withdraws after only forty-six seconds of combat. Of the “one two three, long live Algeria!” » rise from the stands. The 25-year-old Algerian boxer is qualified for the quarter-finals of the Paris Olympics. The story could have ended there if Angela Carini had not mentioned, in tears from the ring, a victory “unfair” (and VO: « It’s not fair! »), offering a powerful echo to an insistent rumor born during the 2023 world boxing championships in New Delhi: Imane Khelif would not be entirely a woman.
In the minutes that followed, the amplifier of social networks made this match one of the biggest controversies of the Paris Games. The head of the Italian government, Giorgia Meloni, speaks out on X against one “fight which was not on an equal footing”, outraged that athletes presenting “male characteristics” be allowed to participate in women’s competitions. From entrepreneur Elon Musk and his more than 200 million subscribers on woke ideology » give their voice to denounce a fight rigged by the “ transgender » Imane Khelif.
On X, the author of the saga Harry Potter who became an antitrans activist even sees in the face of the boxer “a man’s smirk” Who “just hit me in the head” a woman. The Imane Khelif affair even made its way into the American presidential campaign when candidate Donald Trump wrote, in indignant capital letters, on his Truth Social network: “I will keep men out of women’s sports!” » Gimmick that he will use until the eve of his re-election, attacking in a campaign clip broadcast on November 3 and showing a photo of Imane Khelif, at the “ men who can punch women and win medals ».
Reporters are dispatched to Biban Mesbah, in the northwest of Algeria, the village where the sportswoman grew up. Her father, a 49-year-old unemployed welder, is ordered to produce birth certificates and childhood photos of his daughter. LGBT+ associations may well speak out against “intrusive suspicions” and one “wave of international hatred”, we speculate at length of articles on the supposed “hyperandrogenism” or the possible “male karyotype” of the boxer. Imane Khelif has become, despite herself, the catalyst for all the passions and fantasies surrounding the genre. But on August 9, in the final of less than 66 kilos, she proved to the haters (the “haters” who argue on social networks) that she is first and foremost a great champion. Imane Khelif wins the gold medal and becomes a source of national pride in Algeria: she is the first African boxer to win an Olympic title.
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Morocco
