The backlash following the brief Olympic bout between Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Italy’s Angela Carini continues.
Khelif, who’s engulfed in a gender controversy at the 2024 Paris Games, was declared the winner in Thursday’s welterweight fight after Carini surrendered just 46 seconds into the match after being struck multiple times in the face.
Not long after, Riley Gaines — a 12-time All-American and former collegiate swimmer at Kentucky who describes herself as a “leader defending women’s single-sex spaces” — posted on X, “Men don’t belong in women’s sports #IStandWithAngelaCarini.”
Elon Musk then agreed with her in a post on his X platform.
“Absolutely,” Musk wrote in a re-post of Gaines’ initial message.
Carini, 25, said she had “enough” after taking multiple punches to the face during the women’s 66kg preliminaries match Thursday at the North Paris Arena.
“This is unjust,” the two-time Olympian yelled while in her corner.
Carini’s coach, Emanuele Renzini, said she was warned by many not to fight the 25-year-old Khelif, who was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships due to failed gender eligibility tests.
“Many people in Italy tried to call and tell her: ‘Don’t go please: it’s a man, it’s dangerous for you,” Renzini told reporters.
Carini said through tears afterward she had “never taken a punch like that.”
“I’m used to suffering,” she said. “I’ve never taken a punch like that, it’s impossible to continue. I’m nobody to say it’s illegal.
“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.”
Gaines also shared a photo of an emotional Carini on her knees in the ring, calling the moment “heartbreaking” in a separate X post.
“This photo should haunt the IOC (but it won’t),” Gaines wrote.
In addition to Gaines and Musk, YouTuber-turned-boxer Logan Paul called the Olympic clash “the purest form of evil unfolding right before your eyes.”
“A man was allowed to beat up a woman on a global stage, crushing her life’s dream while fighting for her deceased father This delusion must end,” Paul wrote Thursday on X.
Mark Adams, the spokesperson of the International Olympic Committee, said Thursday, “I repeat that all the competitors comply with the eligibility rules.”
“But what I would say is that this involves real people. And, by the way, this is not a transgender issue. I should make this absolutely clear,” he added.
Earlier this week, the IOC doubled down on its framework for its rules.
“Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules,” Adams said. “They are women in their passports and it’s stated that this is the case, that they are female.”
Khelif’s presence at the Paris Games has angered many after last year’s controversy at the world championships.
She was abruptly disqualified from the 2023 IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships before fighting a Chinese opponent due to elevated levels of testosterone.
At the time, IBA president Umar Kremlev said Khelif’s DNA test results “proved they had XY chromosomes.”
Khelif, whose camp initially cited “medical reasons” for the DQ, later withdrew an appeal of the findings.
Khelif was cleared to compete in the Paris Games as the IOC has its own set of guidelines.
In an update to its policy on fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination in 2021, the IOC said each sport’s governing body would “determine how an athlete may be at a disproportionate advantage against their peers, taking into consideration the nature of each sport.”
