Boxer Imane Khelif will fight for gold medal amid outcry over gender claims

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif will fight for an Olympic gold medal Friday night amid the intense scrutiny over misconceptions about her gender.

In her semifinal on Tuesday, Khelif was victorious over Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand at the Paris Olympics at Roland Garros, Paris' famed tennis complex. She will now face China's Liu Yang in the women's 66-kilogram finals on Friday night for the gold medal.

Khelif, a two-time Olympian, has already clinched her first Olympic medal, which is also Algeria's first medal in women's boxing (Olympic boxing does not stage bronze-medal bouts, so the losers of both semifinal bouts receive bronze). She needs one more victory to claim only Algeria's second boxing gold medal, following Hocine Soltani in 1996.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Saturday that "there was never any doubt" about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwanese double world champion Lin Yu-ting being women.

Khelif comfortably won her first two fights in Paris, but the ending of her first bout propelled her into a worldwide divide over gender identity and regulations in sports. Her first opponent, Angela Carini of Italy, tearfully quit after just 46 seconds, saying she was in too much pain from Khelif's punches.

Carini's abandonment of the fight led to comments from the likes of former U.S. President Donald Trump, "Harry Potter" writer J.K. Rowling and others falsely claiming Khelif was a man or transgender.

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In an interview with SNTV, a sports video partner of The Associated Press, Khelif said the wave of hateful scrutiny she is facing "harms human dignity" and called for an end to bullying athletes.

The IOC and its president, Thomas Bach, have repeatedly defended the Olympic eligibility of Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

Two female boxers who were disqualified from the 2023 world championship after being judged to have failed gender eligibility tests were cleared to fight at the Olympic Games in Paris

Khelif and Lin were disqualified by the International Boxing Association in the middle of last year's world championships over what it claimed were failed eligibility tests for the women's competition. The IBA has been banished from the Olympics since before the Tokyo Games, and the body struggled to articulate the reasoning for its decisions on Khelif and Lin at a news conference Monday.

Lin also has clinched a medal and advanced to the Olympic semifinals. She fights Esra Yildiz Kahraman of Turkey in the first bout Wednesday night at Roland Garros.

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