Gold-medal boxer Imane Khelif is getting attacked by one of her former sparring partners.
Bulgarian-Nigerian women’s boxer Joana Nwamerue sparred with Khelif on several occasions and has bizarre theories on Khelif’s background after the Algerian boxer was in the middle of a gender controversy at the Olympics.
“[Khelif] has some kind of internal issues. But he is a man,” Nwamerue said, according to Reduxx. “I will stay [by] my words until he/she does a test to prove to the world that he/she is a woman. But we all know that won’t happen.”
Nwamerue then claimed that she was approached by teammates of Khelif’s and that the newly crowned gold medalist had been “biologically altered” by her environment.
“[Khelif’s] teammates came to me and told me ‘Imane is not a man,’” Nwamerue said.
“She is a woman and just lives high in the mountains with her relatives and parents and so there may be a change in her testosterone or chromosomes and the like…. I think we played three-to-four sparring sessions. I have a record of everything. I can confirm that this is a man to me. Male power. Men’s techniques, everything.”
Khelif is not transgender and was born a woman, although she was banned last year by the International Boxing Association (IBA) over a mysterious failed test that IBA president Umar Kremlev claimed showed she had XY chromosomes.
Khelif won gold in the Paris Olympics last week after she defeated Chinese fighter Yang Liu. Khelif looked dominant throughout her five wins to claim the welterweight tournament.
Afterward she lambasted the harassment she received, saying it “harms human dignity,” according to NBC New York.
“I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects,” Khelif said in Arabic in an interview with SNTV, according to the Associated Press.
“It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
Khelif has also filed a legal complaint over the online harassment she faced over the controversy.
Italian boxer Angela Carini retired from her opening bout with Khelif after 46 seconds, saying she had “never been hit so hard” and set off a mass controversy at the Olympics.
