Olympics women's boxing match ignites gender row: summary

What we know

• Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew from her match against Algerian Imane Khelif just 40 seconds into the bout, following a series of heavy blows. The incident, which took place in the women's welterweight round of 16, has reignited a contentious debate over gender eligibility in sports.
• Carini's coach signalled her withdrawal from the match, leading to a visibly distraught Carini collapsing to her knees in the ring and refusing to shake Khelif's hand after the referee declared the Algerian the winner, Reuters reports.
• The controversy surrounding Khelif is rooted in past issues with the International Boxing Association (IBA). 
• Last year, Khelif was disqualified from the World Championships in New Delhi after failing a gender eligibility test. The IBA had previously barred athletes with XY chromosomes from competing in women's events, a rule that also led to Taiwan’s double-world champion, Lin, losing her bronze medal.
• The IBA's governance and regulatory issues led to it being stripped of its status as the global boxing authority by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in June 2023. The debate touches on Differences of Sexual Development (DSDs), a group of rare conditions that affect genetic and hormonal profiles. Usually implies that a person's sex development is different to most other people's.

What they said

"I am a fighter. My father taught me to be a warrior. When I am in the ring, I use that mindset, the mindset of a warrior, a winning mindset. This time I couldn’t make it. I didn’t lose tonight, I just surrendered with maturity,” Carini told reporters. Adding that "I'm out, my dream is over…I felt really sad, with a broken heart. It's not right for my Olympics to end here, it's not right for my dream to end here, because an athlete makes so many sacrifices. I'm not ashamed to say that I gave up, I'm not even afraid to go back to that ring." Ahead of the bout, IOC spokesman Mark Adams defended the body's decision for Paris 2024 saying, "This involves real people and we are talking about real people's lives here," he told reporters on Thursday. "They have lost and they have won against other women over the years." British author J.K. Rowling wrote on X that, "A young female boxer has just had everything she’s worked and trained for snatched away because you allowed a male to get in the ring with her. #Paris2024 will be forever tarnished by this brutal injustice.” Italy's right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Carini's bout against Khelif was not a fight among equals. "I think that athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women's competitions. And not because you want to discriminate against someone, but to protect the right of female athletes to be able to compete on equal terms."