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THE DESTRUCTION OF WOMEN’S BOXING AT THE PARIS OLYMPICS 2024
BY DUSTY MASTERSON
I have been covering the farce of two men being allowed to take part in the women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics despite being banned from the World Boxing Championships last year, since Update 411. I thought it might help readers if I did a compilation of all the posts so that they are all in one place , so here you go. This is in two parts.
And don’t forget:
#XX
#SaveWomensSport
Ok, here we go.
With regard to quoted pieces from substacks, for the full pieces please refer back to the links in the original update.
Update 411
The Olympics As Farce
After the appalling opening ceremony, especially the take off of The Last Supper involving drag queens, and the fact that there may be larping men in up to 26 sporting categories, it is not surprising that many people are calling for a boycott of the Olympics.
Women’s Rights Network provide full details in their latest newsletter (27 July).
“Gender Equality” in the Olympics
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is touting the 2024 Games as the #GenderEqualOlympics, but does it want to know the response? Well, its promotional film on YouTube has comments turned off but there was an indication of the value the Games place on women as it displayed its “equality” when the Olympic torch arrived in Paris [ the torch was held by two men, one larping as a woman].
Under the IOC’s new policy, both of these men could be eligible to participate in women’s Olympic events.
The Games’ respect and regard for women was made clear in the opening ceremony’s repeated mockery of women regardless of their involvement in sport.
WRN’s Jane Sullivan looks at the current situation created by the IOC’s Gender Equality Review Project. The Committee could have ruled that qualification for any women’s event requires an athlete to be female – previously established with a cheek swab – but they didn’t. Instead, they passed the decision to individual International Sports Federations. Of the 32 sports involved, a whopping six upheld women’s right to fair competition – against women only.
Of the 24 sports that allow men to qualify for women’s events, they either have no international policy and allow national governing bodies to set their own rules, have policies that allow males to compete in female categories, or they follow IOC guidelines. Unbelievably, two contact sports – taekwondo and wrestling – allow males in the female category.
Without the requirement for sex-testing at the Olympics, male athletes fulfilling their sport’s criteria for entry into female categories could make selection and as they’d be listed as female, we’d be none the wiser.
The public perception of male athletes in women’s events has been very carefully curated by the IOC, and this year they have published Portrayal Guidelines to ensure the watchwords are “inclusion and diversity” rather than “female, fairness, and opportunity”. They want sports to “adopt and adapt these Guidelines according to cultural contexts”, so women are reduced to cultural relativity!
Jane’s piece makes the issues clear and, with a possible change in leadership, she asks what the future holds.
The Mysterious Promotion of Men
We’ve been asking why the IOC seems hell-bent on erasing women’s sport and an interview with @Madeleine_Pape, a sociologist and ‘gender specialist’, reveals all.
Pape represented Australia in the women’s 800m at Beijing 2008 and has now masterminded the IOC Media Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination.
The Framework is a masterpiece of Orwellian gobbledegook but contains the frankly outrageous ruling that there should be no presumed advantage of being male in any sport. This neatly ignores over a hundred years of sports records that demonstrate that there is indeed a presumed male advantage in almost any sport you care to look at.
WRN thanked Cathy Devine for her critique of Pape’s IOC MEDIA Framework on “Inclusion” and for reminding us that Madeleine Pape had been involved in an attempt to silence elite female athletes standing up for their rights to fair and safe sport.
Cathy’s critique noted the IOC’s aim to “provide opportunities for inclusion in an athlete’s preferred category wherever possible” and asked, “Since when did athletes get to choose a preferred category? And as ever the problematic ‘gender equality’. Conflating sex with gender, and gender with gender identity. As a sleight of hand to argue that some biological males should be included in female categories.”
Pape tells us that the IOC “recognises that transwomen are women”. She asks us to “consider the human beings at the centre of the debate”, by which she means men wanting to access female sports, not the women who will lose out to them – they’re bigots!
Meanwhile, Reduxx in their latest weekly round up (28 July) report that they are cataloguing the larping men involved and that they have already identified two involved in the women’s boxing. BOXING!!??
Though we are diligently working to catalogue and confirm every instance we have been alerted to, we were able to release the first story yesterday, revealing that two individuals scheduled to compete in women’s boxing had previously been disqualified from a women’s tournament for allegedly being male.
Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting were previously stripped of medals and placing at the Women’s World Boxing Championship 2023 after the International Boxing Association conducted tests revealing the two had “XY chromosomes.” Speaking to Russian-language TASS News at the time, IBA President Umar Kremlev went so far as to say that Khelif and Lin were “pretending to be women” and had “deceived” their colleagues.
As mentioned earlier, Reduxx is aware of other suspected cases and the whole team is working to get those stories to you as soon as we receive confirmation.
Interesting discussion about the Olympics on the latest Mess:
Update 412
The Woolympics and Women’s Sport
So on Thursday and Friday two larping men are going to fight two women in the women’s boxing at the Olympics. I am sure Muhammad Ali will be spinning in his grave - so let’s start with ten minutes of ‘The Greatest’. 😎
Alex Davies in GB News ( JK Rowling blasts Paris 2024 'insanity' as boxers who failed gender eligibility tests compete: 'End this!' 31 July) reports:
JK Rowling blasts Paris 2024 'insanity' as boxers who failed gender eligibility tests compete: 'End this!'© GB News
JK Rowling has pleaded with Olympics rule-makers to "end this insanity" after it was revealed the International Olympic Committee [IOC] was allowing two boxers who've previously failed gender eligibility test to take part.
The two boxers from Algeria and Chinese Taipei had both been disqualified from the world championships last year after being previously tested.
Algeria's Imane Khelif will take to the ring this week to face Italy's Angela Carini in the 66kg category while Chinese Taipei's Lin Yu‑ting fights an opponent in the 57kg category on Friday.
Both competitors were banned from world championships last year under the authority of the International Boxing Association [IBA].
Its president claimed the pair were disqualified as DNA tests showed "they had XY chromosomes" and the ban was to protect the "fairness and integrity" of the world championships, according to the Guardian.
However, the IBA isn't in charge of implementing the laws at the Paris 2024 games with that responsibility now lying with the IOC's Paris 2024 Boxing Unit [PBU].
Algeria's Imane Khelif© GB News
The unit has decided Khelif and Lin are eligible to compete despite the IBA's previous ruling.
The move has proved controversial with several critics slamming the PBU's call - including Harry Potter author and vocal women's rights campaigner JK Rowling.
The author took to X to share her thoughts on the PBU's decision, fuming: "What will it take to end this insanity?
"A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer killed?" she questioned.
The full article is here:
Over to Kara Dansky on her substack, The TERF Report:
Male Violence Against Women is Now an Olympic Sport
Jul 29, 2024
On July 27, 2024, the feminist publication Reduxx broke the news that two male boxers would be competing in the women’s category in Olympic boxing. Boxing.
There is no way to say this other than that the Olympics are allowing two men to beat up women, on a global stage, for sport and entertainment.
Or maybe there is another way to say it. As one X user put it, men punching women is now officially an Olympic sport.
On Thursday August 1st, Italy’s Angela Carini, a 25 year old from Naples, will step into the ring to face a man named Imane Khelif in the Olympic Boxing Arena. This is him:
Photo: International Boxing Federation
This is nothing short of disgusting, and I honestly have no idea how much abuse women will ultimately be expected to take at the altar of men’s “woman gender identities.”
Aap in The Daily Mail ( Australian boxer slams Olympic Games for controversial call to allow Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting to compete in Paris despite failing gender tests: 'Incredibly dangerous' 31 July) reports:
Caitlin Parker believes the Olympics' approval of two boxers who had failed gender eligibility tests is 'incredibly dangerous' ahead of a potential showdown with one of her teammates in Paris.
Australian boxing captain Parker led from the front on Wednesday, dominating Mexico's Vanessa Ortiz with a unanimous points decision to reach the quarter-finals of the 75kg division.
It followed an earlier loss for Shannan Davey to Bulgaria's Rami Mofid, with Charlie Senior still to fight later in the day.
Marissa Williamson will make her Olympic debut on Wednesday in a women's 66kg division now in the spotlight after the International Olympic Committee confirmed two boxers who were disqualified from the world championships last year for failing gender eligibility tests will be allowed to fight in Paris.
Imane Khelif (66kg) of Algeria and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting (57kg) were thrown out by the International Boxing Association that has since lost sanctioning power of the Olympics due to integrity concerns.
The IBA claimed the boxers' chromosome tests came back as XY, which is typically the male chromosome, rather than a female's XX.
The IOC is in charge of Paris's boxing program and have instructed the sport to find a new sanctioning body by early next year to ensure the future of the sport in the Games.
Caitlin Parker © Provided by Daily Mail
Williamson and Khelif will meet in the quarter-finals if they both win on Wednesday.
'I don't agree with them being allowed to compete in sport, especially combat sports,' Parker said.
'It can be incredibly dangerous. I don't agree with it.
'It's not like I haven't sparred men before. But you know it can be dangerous for combat sports and it should be seriously looked into.'
'Yes, biologically ... genetically they are going to have more advantages and in combat sports it can be dangerous.
'I really hope the organisations get their act together so that boxing can continue to be at the Olympics.
'It's the oldest Olympic sport. Women's boxing was only introduced in 2012 and I want to see it for the next 100, 200 years to come.'
The full article is here:
Meanwhile Andrew Doyle looks at this on his substack:
Men do not belong in women’s sports
Two male boxers are competing in the women’s category at this year’s Olympic Games. This madness has to stop.
Jul 30, 2024
It is a curiosity of our times that so many writers and commentators have little alternative but to continually state the obvious. Books have been written to remind us that free speech is worth preserving, that segregating people by skin colour in the name of progress is not a good idea, and that there are only two sexes in the human race. One may as well write a book about how a tiger might not respond positively if you tug on his scrotum.
Ten years ago, who would have thought that Olympic athlete Sharron Davies would feel compelled to argue the point that men should not compete in women’s sports? And yet for some reason her book Unfair Play: The Battle for Women’s Sports was not only necessary, but considered somehow controversial. Richard Dawkins must have felt much the same way when he wrote The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, in which he outlined in painstaking detail the irrefutable proof for an argument that most of us assumed had already been settled.
This week Reduxx magazine broke the news that two male boxers are competing as women in this year’s Olympic Games. Both athletes – Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan – had previously been disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in India in March 2023 when tests revealed that they had XY chromosomes. And yet for some reason the International Olympic Committee has decreed that it is perfectly acceptable to put female boxers at risk by forcing them to fight against men.
It is utterly exhausting to point out that this is completely unfair, recklessly dangerous, and should never have been allowed to happen. Activists and their supporters in the media often try to engage in elaborate casuistry in an attempt to complicate what is actually a very simple matter. Modifications to hormones will never eliminate the inherent advantage that men incur through the process of male puberty, whether that be in regard to muscle mass, bone density, heart and lung size, longer limbs, greater height and so on.
For those in any doubt, here are some specific statistics from Helen Joyce’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality:
“The average adult man has 41 percent more non-fat body mass (blood, bones, muscles and so on) than the average woman, 50 percent more muscle mass in his legs and 75 percent more in his arms. His legs are 65 percent stronger, and his upper body is 90 percent stronger. The overwhelming upper-body advantage is nowhere near accounted for by differences in size – as can be seen in weightlifting competitions, where competitors are banded by weight, and the male world champion in each category lifts around 30 percent more than the female one.”
The Countess in Ireland have organised an excellent letter to the IOC:
Open letter to IOC about Women’s Boxing
July 31, 2024
31 July 2024
Dear President Bach,
We, a diverse group of individuals and organisations who advocate for women’s rights, call upon the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) to urgently investigate the eligibility of two boxers (Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting) to compete in the women’s Olympics boxing events, which commenced this week in Paris.
These two boxers were previously deemed ineligible to compete in women’s boxing events by their sport’s governing body, the International Boxing Association (“IBA”). We understand the IBA excluded the two boxers based on the results of sex/hormone screening, which deemed that they are not eligible to box in the female category.
The IOC has undertaken the role of boxing governing body for the Paris Olympics and we would presume would retain the same eligibility criteria for participation in women’s boxing events. Instead, however, the IOC has deemed the two boxers, Khelif and Yu-ting, eligible to compete against women. This seems impossible to justify, especially if any meaningful risk assessment was conducted. Dr Emma Hilton, a well-respected developmental biologist, has conducted research that shows a male boxer’s punch is 160% more powerful than a woman’s punch. There is a very real risk of death or serious injury to these women boxers. We, therefore, find this decision to include two males in women’s boxing extremely concerning for both the safety and well-being of women boxers.
We call on the IOC to reverse the decision to permit Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting to compete in the women’s Olympics boxing events and to abide by the IBA’s eligibility criteria instead.
In addition, we call on the IOC to immediately reinstate the cheek swab sex screening for all athletes participating in the Paris (and future) Olympic games to ensure fairness, dignity, and integrity in women’s Olympic competitions.
Kind regards,
Sorcha Nic Lochlainn, Sports Spokeswoman, The Countess
Laoise de Brún BL, CEO and Founder of The Countess
Sharron Davies, MBE
Riley Gaines
Martina Navratilova, OLY
Donna de Varona, OLY
Nancy Hogshead, J.D., OLY
Donna Lopiano, Ph.D.
Mariah Burton Nelson, M.P.H.
Tracy Sundlun
Inga Thompson
The Countess
AFCC-French Association of Women Cyclists
Alianza Contra el Borrado de las Mujeres
Fair Play for Women
For Women Scotland Sport
Gaels for Fair Play
Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS)
Independent Women’s Forum
Lobby Europeo de Mujeres en España
Movimiento Abolicionista de Segovia
Mujeres Progresistas de Retiro
Partido Feministas al Congreso
Save Women’s Sport Australasia
Sex Matters
Women’s Declaration International (WDI)
Women’s Space Ireland
Women Won’t Wheest
Women’s Sports Policy Working Group
Meanwhile Rex Landy has a lovely serenade for the IOC 😊
https://rexlandy.substack.com/p/faglympics-woman-beating-is-the-new
Excellent interview on Free Speech Nation with Joan Smith following on from Lisa Nandy’s statement that sports bodies can decide whether to allow in larping men or not:
https://rexlandy.substack.com/p/faglympics-woman-beating-is-the-new
Excellent piece from a parent on Parents with Inconvenient Truths About Trans:
The ABC of My Trans Adventure, Part Three
Jul 31, 2024
This is the third segment of an essay in four parts. Part one and part two.
C is for Creepy and Confused Cheaters, Cruelly and Callously Creating Craziness and Complete Chaos in Competition
In an episode of his podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" with guest Ice Cube (rapper and founder of the BIG3, basketball league), Joe Rogan stated, quite accurately, that when it comes to men (trans "women") competing in women's sports, biological females are basically forced to comply or give up.
He added, "It's fucking up women's sports in a huge way...If you care at all about biological women, you should be against that". I'd like to pause for a moment on that last statement "if you care at all about biological women". It's actually the very essence of the issue with gender confused men. Trans "women", aka males competing against real women, don't give a damn about female competitors. These men know that they have significant physical advantages which aren’t negated with hormones and that these physical advantages will propel them from mediocre in male sports to the top of women’s sports. On top of depriving hard working female athletes of the fruit of their labor, they are, at times, responsible for injuries sustained by female athletes, due to their superior male strength. Some of those trans athletes have no problem admitting that they actually enjoy hurting women in the process. A trans MMA fighter, Fallon Fox, said in an interview in 2020: "For the record, I knocked two out (women). One woman's skull was fractured, the other not. And just so you know: I enjoyed it. See, I love smacking up TEFS in the cage who talk transphobic nonsense. It's bliss". By TEFS, he meant TERFS. You know, those women who fight for the right to not be erased and discarded as women...
Trans athletes (all of them males, of course, how many women could compete against men in most sports?) are also very aware of the societal support they get and the nasty public excoriation any dissenter gets for criticizing their "victories" and "accomplishments" and exposing them as the blatant frauds they are (thank God for women like Riley Gaines). The ultimate proof that they are not in it for the competition is that no one ever signs up (or very rarely) when an open trans category is made available to them. They are not in for the game but to compete against women and win. Plus, how many men identifying as trans women compete in sports where they can’t excel, like women’s gymnastics?
Turns out that Monty Python were not only great at satirical comedy but were also prophets!!
Update 413
I am coming back much earlier than expected due to the amazing events of today at the Olympics. However let’s start with the Queen ( and Daniel Craig) and how to do a proper Olympic Opening Ceremony ( thanks to a wonderful reader for the brilliant suggestion 😊) :
Angela Carini, Hero
Kellie-Jay Keen provided live coverage of the bout this morning between a woman, Angela Carini of Italy, and a man, Imane Khelif of Algeria. To remind readers, Dr Emma Hilton, a well-respected developmental biologist, has conducted research that shows a male boxer’s punch is 160% more powerful than a woman’s punch. After receiving two or three punches to the face which were clearly the kind of punches she had never experienced before, Carini pulled out of the contest. While it is a tragedy that all her Olympic hopes have been dashed in this totally unfair way, she was brave to even get in the ring and equally brave to pull out when she realised how outgunned she was. I agree with KJK that this may be a seminal moment in this fight but especially when I have seen the media reaction not only from those who we can rely on to run ‘gender critical’ stories but also from those who are normally totally off with the gender woo! I quote reports below and the link to the full article is at the end of each piece ( all stories 01 August). All thoughts gratefully received.
https://x.com/ThePosieParker/status/1818965310327619629
Chris Davie in The Metro ( Italy's PM blasts Olympics after female boxer quits fight vs Imane Khelif ) reports:
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has slammed the decision to allow Imane Khelif to compete in the women’s boxing after Angela Carini abandoned her fight against the Algerian after just 46 seconds on Thursday.
Khelif, who competed at the Tokyo Games in 2021, was disqualified from the final of the Women’s World Championships last year for failing International Boxing Association (IBA) eligibility rules which prevents athletes with XY chromosomes from participating in women’s events.
The Algerian has been cleared to compete at her [ HIS!!] second Olympics as the competition is run by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has released a statement insisting that all boxers ‘comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations’.
But Khelif’s first appearance in Paris lasted less than a minute after Carini waved off the fight having taken a heavy punch to the face inside 30 seconds.
The Italian went back to her corner and was heard saying to her coach, ‘it’s not fair’ and ‘it hurts like hell’.
Imane Khelif (Getty)
Carini’s was in tears in the ring as the official announcement was made that Khelif had won the fight.
Speaking shortly after Carini’s decision to withdraw, Italian PM, Meloni, criticised the IOC’s decision to allow Khelif to compete and said the contest ‘was not a competition on equal terms’.
‘I do not agree with the IOC’s choice, I have not for years,’ Meloni said.
‘When in 2021 the IOC changed the regulation on this matter we presented a motion to point out the consequences that this could have.’
Ollie Lewis in The Daily Mail ( Imane Khelif's next opponent at the Olympic Games confirmed: Algerian boxer will take on Hungarian rival Anna Luca Hamori after her Italian opponent withdrew in just 46 seconds ) reports:
Imane Khelif's next opponent has been confirmed, with Hungary's Anna Luca Hamori to step in the ring with the Algerian at the Olympic Games.
Boxing at this year's Games in Paris been marred by conflicting gender eligibility rules in Paris, with Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting allowed to compete despite being disqualified from last year's world championships.
The pair failed unspecified gender eligibility tests and were deemed to have a competitive advantage, but the International Olympic Committee have allowed both to compete.
That decision has sparked outrage among the boxing community and it came to a head on Thursday when Italy's Angela Carini withdrew from her bout against Khelif after just 46 seconds, having felt the power of two of her [ HIS!] punches.
Ellie Ng in The Irish News ( UN special rapporteur on violence against women criticises boxing fight ) reports:
The UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls (VAWG) has condemned the decision to allow Imane Khelif to compete in women’s boxing at the Olympics, with MPs and JK Rowling among other critics.
It comes after Italian boxer Angela Carini’s women’s 66kg clash with the Algerian boxer was abandoned after just 46 seconds.
The build-up to the fight was marred by controversy following the inclusion of Khelif, who was one of two athletes cleared to compete in the women’s boxing after being disqualified from last year’s women’s world boxing championships in New Delhi for failing to meet the necessary gender eligibility criteria.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesperson Mark Adams said the two boxers fighting at the Olympics after being disqualified from last year’s world championships are “real people” who have been competing “for many years” and that “this is not a transgender issue”, the BBC reported. [ Dusty - SHAME!!]
Angela Carini pictured in floods of tears after the match
Reem Alsalem, the UN’s special rapporteur on VAWG, said Carini “rightly followed her instincts and prioritised her physical safety, but she and other female athletes should not have been exposed to this physical and psychological violence based on their sex”.
Rowling, who has become known as a fierce advocate for the rights of biological women, labelled the IOC safeguarding “a joke”.
James Reynolds in The Daily Mail ( Italian PM blasts IOC over Olympic female boxing decision ) reports:
Italy's Prime Minister has hit out at the International Olympic Committee after Italian boxer Angela Carini conceded her Olympic Round of 16 fight with Algeria's Imane Khelif in what has become one of the most controversial Olympic bouts of all time.
Carini threw in the towel after just 46 seconds, throwing her helmet to the floor as the fight was abandoned before yelling: 'This is unjust.' Carini's opponent Khelif has been in the spotlight for failing a gender eligibility test at a tournament last year.
She [ HE!!! Aghhhh!] was, however, ruled eligible to compete in the boxing competition at the Paris Olympics, which is being organised by the International Olympic Committee.
Italian premier Giorgia Meloni shared her fury at the decision after Carini was seen devastated after this morning's fight.
'It is a fact that with the levels of testosterone present in the blood of the Algerian athlete the race at the start does not seem fair,' she said, adding she has opposed the IOC's stance 'for years'.
Jack Otway in GB News ( Olympics fans rage as athlete who has failed gender test wins boxing fight - 'End of equality in sport' ) reports:
© GB News
Fans of the Olympics have raged on social media after Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won her first bout on Thursday.
The 25-year-old star has been cleared to compete in the women's event amid a gender eligibility row, with Khelief previously disqualified from the Women's World Boxing Championships last year.
Khelif had been kicked out after her [ HIS!!!] elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria.
The Algerian Olympic Committee, for their part, hit back by saying her [ HIS!] elimination was part of a 'conspiracy' to stop them from winning a gold medal. They also said her [ HIS!] high testosterone levels were down to 'medical reasons'. [ Dusty - What? Like being a man?]
On Thursday, Khelif took the ring for the first time at the Olympics.
She beat Italian star Angela Carini, who withdrew after just 46 seconds following two early punches in the opening round.
THE BBC HAVE NOT COVERED THIS!!
Tom Morgan and Ben Rumsby in The Telegraph ( TV commentators silent on Olympics boxing gender row ) report:
Imane Khelif (red) won after her [ HIS!!] opponent Angela Carini (blue) abandoned the fight - Getty Images/Richard Pelham
TV viewers were kept in the dark about the mounting Olympic gender row as the Algerian fighter who failed two sex tests felled an Italian opponent with one ferocious punch.
The BBC had chosen not to screen any live footage of the 46-second mismatch, while Eurosport screened the IOC-approved Olympic Broadcasting Services feed, on which the commentary team did not once mention the furore.
IOC attempts to “dial down” scrutiny of Algerian fighter Imane Khelif have prompted inevitable questions about whether the world feed commenter on duty, Hannah Rankin, was told not to mention the row.
Angela Carini abandoned the fight after 46 seconds with a suspected broken nose and is believed to have complained to her corner non e giusto (“it’s not right”). To add to the dismay of viewers, however, Eurosport, which was broadcasting the fight, did not mention scrutiny around Khelif in the 66kg weight category at all during coverage.
The BBC, meanwhile, had no live footage of the fight available across its two Olympic channels as the broadcaster instead showed a British rowing medal ceremony on BBC 1 and live badminton on iPlayer.
Sami Quadri in The Evening Standard ( Italian boxer 'never felt punch like this' as she quit Olympic bout against athlete who failed 'gender test' ) reports:
Italian boxer Angela Carini says she quit the highly contentious Olympic match between her and Algeria's Imane Khelifhas after just 46 seconds because she “never felt a punch like this”.
The Italian insisted she was not making a political statement and refusing to fight Khelif, but rather her nose “hurt so much”.
Khelif, who failed a testosterone test at last year's World Championships, was allowed to compete despite being banned from a gold-medal bout in Delhi by the International Boxing Association.
The IBA cited Khelif's failure of biochemical tests in two consecutive years.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now facing mounting pressure to explain its decision to permit Khelif's participation, given the uncertainty surrounding her [ HIS!] sex classification.
Ben Rumsby in The Telegraph ( Q&A: Everything you need to know about the boxing scandal which has rocked the Games ) reports:
Italy's Angela Carini (right) abandoned her bout with Algeria's Imane Khelif after 46 seconds with a suspected broken nose - Fabio Bozzani/Anadolu/Getty Images
The gender row engulfing the Olympic women’s boxing competition has intensified after the first opponent of the Algerian fighter who failed two sex tests abandoned their bout after 46 seconds.
Italy’s Angela Carini was left with a suspected broken nose by Imane Khelif, whom the International Olympic Committee controversially allowed to enter the welterweight event in Paris despite the 25-year-old being disqualified by the International Boxing Association last year following gender testing.
Khelif’s ongoing participation has raised serious questions for the IOC and IBA, several of which remain unanswered.
What is Khelif’s actual sex?
This has yet to be confirmed and there may not even be a straightforward answer. Khelif was disqualified from last year’s Women’s World Boxing Championships after undergoing what IBA president Umar Kremlev told Russian news agency TASS had been DNA tests.
He added: “Based on the results of the tests, it was proven that they have XY [male] chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from the competition.”
The IBA this week confirmed Khelif was also tested at the previous year’s World Championships, adding she [ HE!] had not undergone “a testosterone examination” but was “subject to a separate and recognised test, whereby the specifics remain confidential”.
It said Khelif had initially lodged an appeal against her [HIS!] disqualification with the Court of Arbitration for Sport only to withdraw it. The IOC, meanwhile, has already stated “this is not a transgender issue” and pointed out she [ HE!] also competed at the last Olympics in Tokyo but it has provided no further clarity as to Khelif’s status.
It is most likely the boxer is an athlete born with differences in sex development (DSD), akin to middle-distance runner Caster Semenya. The extent of any such differences can vary but those with DSD assigned as female at birth often possess internal testes that produce testosterone, giving them a potential size and strength advantage over those without them.
Carini was left with a suspected broken nose by Khelif after the Algerian landed a punch moments before her opponent called time on the bout at the 46 second mark - Fabio Bozzani/Anadolu via Getty Images
Why is she [ HE!] allowed to compete at the Olympics?
After previously policing gender eligibility at the Games, the IOC has passed the buck to the international federations of individual sports, many of which have now banned transgender women from competing in female events. The likes of athletics also have rules in place governing those with DSD, which are enforced at the Olympics.
So, under normal circumstances, you would expect the IOC to follow the IBA’s lead when it comes to Khelif’s eligibility. However, the IBA has not run the Olympic boxing competition since 2016 following a major corruption scandal, with the IOC instead taking charge.
That has seen it use arguably out-of-date gender-eligibility rules at the Games, prompting major criticism from women’s rights campaigners. The fact it is effectively at war with the IBA and that a rival international federation, World Boxing, could end up running the sport at the Olympics in future have also not helped when it comes to alignment between the two bodies.
It is also unclear why Khelif was disqualified by the IBA only before her [ HIS!] gold-medal match at last year’s World Championships given she [HE!] had been tested a year earlier, when she [ HE!] won silver.
Is Khelif the only boxer to fail a gender test?
No. Friday could witness a repeat of Thursday’s shocking scenes when Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting fights Sitora Turdibekova from Uzbekistan at 2.30pm (UK time) in the featherweight division.
Like Khelif, Lin was disqualified from last year’s World Championships as a result of similar tests conducted there and the previous year.
She [ HE!] was stripped of a bronze medal won at last year’s event. She [HE!] had won gold the previous year, to add to a bantamweight title she [HE!] had claimed in 2018.
Taiwan's Lin Yu-Ting SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP
How likely is Khelif to win?
She [HE!] was 3/10 on to win Olympic gold after her [HIS!] victory on Thursday, making her [ HIM!] the heavy favourite. The majority of leading bookmakers then halted betting on her [ HIS!] category, signalling how strong a favourite she [HE!] has become.
What happens next?
Carini abandoning her fight could spark a major diplomatic and legal row, with Georgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, branding the bout with Khelif “not even a contest”.
It will be interesting to see if further abandonments, or even boycotts, follow. Sharron Davies, the British swimming icon turned women’s rights campaigner, told Telegraph Sport: “Boxing countries need to come together and say, ‘Enough!’, to protect female boxers and the integrity of the sport.”
Rory Robinson In The Daily Express ( Steve Bunce calls Olympics gender row 'absolute disaster' after fighter quits in seconds) reports:
Steve Bunce commented on the ongoing women's Olympic boxing controversy© Getty
Imane Khelif's win at the 2024 Paris Olympics has reignited intense discussions about gender eligibility in sports. BBC Radio 5 Live boxing analyst Steve Bunce described the victory as a disaster for the Algerian boxer, whose success was stained by controversy over her [ HIS!] eligibility to compete in women's events.
Khelif faced Italy's Angela Carini in the women's 145lb [66kg] class. The match ended abruptly when Khelif landed a powerful right-hand punch to Carini's face, prompting the Italian fighter to signal for a time-out. Her coach tried to adjust her headgear, which had slipped due to the impact. Although she briefly continued, Carini eventually ended the fight with 2:14 remaining in the first round, citing severe pain in her nose and concerns for her health.
The victory garnered significant backlash, especially from prominent figures in combat athletics. Former UFC champion Israel Adesanya criticized Khelif, stating, "Men should not be boxing women. Lol, he couldn't even finish her. Anyway, People > politics."
Imane Khelif won in less than a minute© Getty
Women's boxing champion Claressa Shields echoed similar sentiments in an interview with Fox News, advocating for gender-specific competitions and suggesting that transgender athletes should have their category. Khelif has competed in women's athletics since her [ HIS!] boxing debut in 2018.
From Twitter
https://x.com/Matt_Pinner/status/1819017743124803689
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1819007216214573268
This could be a pivotal moment. I do hope so!
Angela Carini
Update 414
No rest for the wicked here at Dusty Towers!! After MSM went mad yesterday about the Olympic boxing farce, the substackers got rolling this morning ( Ahem…I would like to point out I was ahead of the pack 😎). So here we go again plus a couple of other important things to add on.
By the way I was delighted that one of my favourites boxers, the great Barry McGuigan has come out on our side of the argument 😊
This is the first in the new Heroes Season and it was an easy choice - it had to be Million Dollar Baby!
In the 2004 film, boxing trainer, Frankie Dunn ( played by Clint Eastwood) eventually and reluctantly agrees to train young woman boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald ( Hilary Swank). Maggie is supported by Dunn’s gym assistant and former boxer, Eddie ‘Scrap Iron’ Dupris (Morgan Freeman).
Thanks this time to three wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Women’s Boxing in the Woolympics
I am pleased to report that the second woman to meet a man in the women’s boxing, albeit she was easily defeated, lasted the distance and (it appears) was not seriously hurt. This doesn’t make it any the less unfair, of course!!
https://x.com/oliverbrown_tel/status/1819369642936123497
On Megyn Kelly’s show, she discusses the Angela Carini fight with Charlie Kirk ( and this includes some illuminating comments about Kamala Harris!!) - first 30 minutes:
Geoff Kidder and Ella Whelan on The Academy of Ideas( The punch felt around the world 02 August) write;
The Olympic women’s welterweight boxing match between Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Italy’s Angela Carini sent shockwaves around the world. Khelif - who has a disorder of sex development (DSD), including heightened testosterone levels - battered Carini before the Italian retired from the bout after 46 seconds. ‘I have never felt a punch like this’, she said after the fight.
At a time when the participation of male athletes in women’s sport categories is such a live issue, this brutal inequality shocked millions. Indeed, before Khelif and Carini’s bout, the Irish boxer Kellie Harrington said she would refuse to compete against any boxers who are biological males. But it is the authorities, not individual athletes, who should be taking responsibility. Despite all of this, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and many in the sports establishment and media continue to bury their heads in the sand and pretend all is well.
Khelif is one of two boxers at the centre of controversy at the Olympics. Along with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, both boxers had previously been deemed ineligible for the female category by the International Boxing Association, likely because of a cheek swab establishing that they have XY (male) chromosomes rather than XX chromosomes (female). As the charity Sex Matters points out, the IOC has allowed the two to participate in the Paris Olympics on the basis that ‘their passports say female’. If the IOC is prioritising bits of paper over previous medical examinations, this is clearly a problem.
There are some who have pointed the finger at Khelif for agreeing to step into a ring with an unfair advantage. But it is important to maintain the distinction between the few athletes with the unusual case of DSD, and the likes of swimmer Lia Thomas, cyclist Emily Bridges or weightlifter Laurel Hubbard. While the former may or may not have lived as a female from birth, the latter three are ‘trans’ - having been born and gone through puberty as male, but now identifying as women and therefore entering women’s categories. Notably, men becoming transwomen often achieve more success competing against female athletes than they did against males.
Nevertheless, in sport, biology is not quite everything, but it’s almost everything - the different social conditions and categories we give to people outside the ring or the pool become irrelevant in contests which require an even playing field for strength, endurance and power. On average, men (or perhaps more precisely, people with ‘male advantage’) can run faster, jump higher and punch harder than women and this is particularly true at elite level. If this were true in only a handful of cases, it would make no sense to distinguish sporting categories based on sex. The differences are consistent and tend to be overwhelming.
In the case of boxing, this is not merely a matter of fairness, it can be downright dangerous. The punching power of male boxers can be extraordinary - as illustrated by a darkly amusing anecdote. In the 1990s, actor Mickey Rourke decided to quit the screen for a while to pursue his other passion, boxing. He was no mug, being undefeated in eight professional fights. But he was no match for one legendary boxer, he told the BBC in 2005: ‘I once did a little sparring with Tommy Hearns. He hit me at two in the afternoon and I went down to a knee. At four in the morning, I was still throwing up.’
Quite simply, the Khelif punch became a symbol for everything that has gone wrong in women’s sport. Yesterday morning, the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 broadcast an interview with the Team GB rower Lola Anderson, fresh from her Olympic gold medal in the women’s quadruple sculls. When asked what her teenage self might make of her achievement, Anderson spoke passionately about how women’s sport had changed in her lifetime - how important it was for her to be able to watch women compete and achieve in ways she thought might not be possible. This championing of women’s sport is completely undermined by the inclusion of biological males in the contest.
If nothing else, this spectacle has proved to millions around the world the importance of preserving women’s sport for women. Commentators on many mainstream outlets have been hesitant to talk about what happened - some even suggesting that Carini wasn’t as hurt as she made out. From the lionisation of the Lionesses to incessant Nike adverts championing Girls That Run, we seem to love to talk about women’s sport, until those women want it to be for women only.
The IOC has since released a statement in defence of Khelif and Lin, arguing that the IBA’s previous decisions were ‘sudden and arbitrary’ and that these athletes have been ‘competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category’. At the same time, prominent female athletes - like former Olympian Sharron Davies - have pointed out that simple tests would eliminate confusion and end this ‘vile circus which benefits no one’. But instead of listening to female athletes - those who are most effected by these injustices, sometimes losing podium places, sometimes getting hurt - sports authorities and commentators routinely dismiss such suggestions as ‘transphobic’ or ‘bigoted’. Indeed, the IOC is refusing to engage with women’s complaints, simply stating that the ‘current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision’.
Life isn’t always fair - sport is a great example of this fact. Sport can’t be unendingly inclusive - there must be rules, requirements and restrictions in order to ensure a level playing field for athletes. Proof - hard, cold facts - must play a bigger role than what we feel. In the name of inclusion, women are being told to step aside. This isn’t fair, and it isn’t right. It’s time we started demanding that, when it comes to women’s sport, women are most important.
Straight talking as ever from Rex Landy on her substack, Reality Bites:
Women: Born, Not Worn. Biology Dictates Reality
(DSDs Are Getting a Hammering Thanks to Cheating Tranny Men)
Aug 02, 2024
Biology Dictates Reality. I was tempted to end the post there, to be honest. Small bite-sized punchy sayings are what’s needed to counter the spin and lies about trannys.
Never seen a woman with a boner. Because we don’t have dicks. Never have. Never will. Notice how the Lamestream and their masters have NO problem saying this dude was ‘born female’? Why wasn’t he assigned female at birth like all the cervix-havers and front-holers? Now all of a sudden everyone’s assuredly saying ‘born female’ of a giant manslab. This is why you must never use cult language.
Edie Wyatt addresses the issue on her substack, Culture & State:
And you may ask yourself.
Well, how did I get here?
Aug 02, 2024
Almost exactly three years ago today I wrote about Laurel Hubbard competing in the female category of weightlifting. When the female athletes were asked to comment on the entry of men into their sport, all three women on the panel at the press conference refused to comment.
Breaking the silence, American weightlifter Sarah Robles leaned forward to the microphone and said, “no thank you”.
In the article I wrote.
“’No thank you’ are the words many young girls of colour and white girls alike, will have to say in their life when they want to say something much stronger, something louder, something ruder, something entirely prohibited.”
“No thank you” has since become an equivalent phrase in the gender critical world to “go fuck yourself”.
The online editor told me that my article briefly crashed The Spectator website because of the additional traffic. I received a message from a popular Canadian podcast asking me to come on and talk about the issues I had raised in the article. I told them that I would, but they needed to be aware that I am a gender critical feminist. I never heard from them again.
In September 2021 I wrote about the trans identified MMA fighters Alana McLaughlin and Fallon Fox, after McLaughlin had defeated his female opponent with a “rear-naked choke” and Fox had left Tamikka Brents with a concussion, an orbital bone fracture, and staples in her head.
I explained in the politest way I could imagine, that apart from the individual danger to the female athletes, the visuals and rhetoric around the acceptance of men in women’s sport was even more dangerous for populations of females in general.
I said;
“Without the ability to define sexual boundaries and the cultural consensus to have her instincts about danger in males validated, women and girls are at greater risk. A society that indulges this gender nonsense to the level that it encourages the mass gaslighting of girls and women out of factual understandings and natural instincts, is in serious trouble.”
Today again, we face the obvious reality online, that regular people do not want to see men beating up women. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) tried to handball the issue early on in the 2024 games, when it was clear that men were going to compete for women’s boxing medals, by saying they had to accept the sex that was listed on the passport.
I want to remind you that when self-identification on official documents was pitched by our government, it was claimed it was to avoid intrusive surgery, this nonsense idea was even platformed by the conservative Murdoch press.
Now we have seen, in an Olympic boxing ring, female boxer Angela Carini forfeit a fight for her own safety, because from the first punch, she knew her opponent was playing with a different set of genetics to what she had. I won’t go into the science, because ultimately this is not about science, it’s about power and politics and the ongoing oppression of women by men.
At the centre of the storm is the fake human rights category of “gender identity”. Gender identity is not a minority protection category, it is the erasure of protection.
Máirín de Barra on Gript News ( WATCH: Female boxer forced to quit in 46-sec Olympic bout, as row deepens 01 August) reports:
An already heated controversy over the inclusion of two boxers who had been excluded from the female category in a previous world tournament after a gender test looks set to continue after one of the contentious fighters faced off against Italy’s Angela Carini who quit after a 46-second fight in which Carini said she had “never felt a punch like this”.
Outrage has been expressed online as videos of the fight were shared, which showed Imane Khelif – who one international boxing authority says has XY chromosomes – landing ferocious punches on Carini, who said she abandoned the Olympic fight because she needed to preserve her life.
Ms Carini dropped to her knees after Khelif was announced the winner of the fight by abandonment: having called out to her coach ‘non è giusto – ‘this is unjust’.
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls tweeted that Ms Carini “rightly followed her instincts and prioritized her physical safety, but she and other female athletes should not have been exposed to this physical and psychological violence based on their sex.”
Oliver Brown, the Chief Sport Writer for the Telegraph said that Carini’s coach had relayed that: “Many people in Italy tried to call and tell her: ‘Don’t go please, it’s a man, it’s dangerous for you’.”
“This was the right hand from Imane Khelif that left Angela Carini unable to continue. There was blood on her shorts,” Brown wrote, adding that “a first punch from Khelif, who was thrown out of last year’s World Championships after failing biochemical tests for testosterone, dislodged Carini’s chinstrap before a second smashed against her chin and spattered blood over her shorts.”
Mr Brown described the fight as “one of the most shaming in Olympic history”, with other commentators calling on the International Olympics Committee to take action.
Ms Carini, in an emotional post-fight interview said that she was “heartbroken” as she had gone “into the ring to honour my father” but that she had “never felt a punch like this”.
“I got into the ring and did my duty as a boxer and tried to fight irrespective of any controversy or anything else. I wanted to win. After the second blow to the nose, I couldn’t breathe anymore. I went to my coach and said ‘enough’ because it takes maturity and courage to stop.”
“I wasn’t able to finish the match,” the devastated boxer said. “I felt a strong pain in my nose and I said to myself that for the experience I have and the maturity as a woman that I have, that I would stop. I hope my nation won’t take it badly, I hope my dad won’t take it badly. It could have been the match of a lifetime, but I had to preserve my life as well in that moment.”
Imane Khelif said after the win: “I am here for gold. I’ll fight anyone.”
Irish boxing legend, Barry McGuigan, who was publicly critical of the decision by the IOC to let Khelif fight in the Paris Olympics said after the match : “So here is the IOC idea of fairness in the 2024 Olympic Games, shocking and unfair on Women & Girls.”
Advocacy group, The Countess, said that they had warned the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, in an open letter about women’s boxing, which was cosigned by women’s groups and individuals, that “a male punch is up to 160% stronger than a woman’s. There is a real risk of injury or death.”
Spokeswoman Sorcha Nic Lochlainn said “Our letter was co-signed by organisations and individuals including former Olympians and elite athletes like Martina Navratilova and Sharron Davies. We are also calling for immediate resumption of sex-screening of athletes who enter women’s competitions, a simple test that can be done by cheek swab. The IOC stopped sex testing prior to the 2000 Olympics, despite a majority of women athletes accepting the test and agreeing that the female category should remain female only. This testing could have avoided this whole situation.”
As reported by Gript, The Countess had earlier this week called for the “immediate resumption of sex testing by cheek swab ” in order to ensure the “protection of the female category at the Paris Olympics”, as controversy continued regarding two boxers in the games.
Two Olympic boxers – Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting – qualified to compete in Paris by coming through events organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Both had been disqualified from a previous world boxing event in New Delhi in March 2023 organised by the International Boxing Association (IBA) after it was claimed that testing showed they had XY chromosomes.
Nic Lochlainn said that Ireland’s Michaela Walsh is in the 57kg category with Lin Yu Tin and Gráinne Walsh is in the 66kg division with Imane Khalif.
The IBA, which governs amateur boxing, was stripped of its Olympic recognition in 2023 after the IOC said there was issues around “financial transparency” and “fairness in the appointment of judges and referees”.
The IOC has defended its decision to include the two boxers, saying that the Tokyo 2020 boxing rules (enforced at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the related qualifying tournaments) were used as a baseline to develop its regulations. Sorcha Nic Lochlainn, sports spokeswoman for The Countess, called for sex testing at the games, saying: “Two boxers who failed sex testing by the International Boxing Association have been allowed to compete in the women’s divisions at this year’s Olympics”. She said that male competitors in a female competition would have “higher levels of testosterone and male body development.”
“It is outrageous that two athletes deemed ineligible for the Women’s World Boxing Championships in March of 2023 are now able to self-declare eligibility for the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee is on the one hand celebrating the first ‘gender equal’ Olympics and on the other undermining the very basis of
the female category. They are making a mockery of themselves.”
Mark Adams, the IOC’s spokesman, defended the decision saying: “These boxers are entirely eligible – they are women on their passports.” He added that: “It’s not helpful to start stigmatising people like this. We all have a responsibility not to turn it into some kind of witch-hunt”.
In response to his statement, Barry McGuigan said that Mr Adams “wouldn’t know a left hook from a fish hook”.
The Countess said the primary issue was one of male advantage in sports. “The IOC delegated eligibility criteria for women’s sport to the individual sport governing bodies. The IBA has a female-only policy and previously disqualified the two boxers because they were found to be male. However, because the IBA are not overseeing boxing at the Paris Olympics, the IOC has set up its own unit for boxing eligibility and allowed these two male boxers enter the women’s category,” Ms Nic Lochlainn said.
“The IOC guidelines issued to individual federations around transgender inclusion suggest that there be ‘no presumption of advantage’ for males who declare they are women,” Nic Lochlainn said, “This is clearly ludicrous and has been proven over and over again to be false. Although the absolute male advantage varies by sport, it is clear that this advantage cannot be removed. Allowing males into female sport undermines the very reason for the existence of the category in the first place. It is akin to allowing twenty-year-olds to identify as under twelves. There is just no way to ever make it fair.”
“In boxing, it is clearly unsafe as well for the women who have worked so hard to qualify. A man’s punch is up to 160% more powerful than a woman’s. There could be serious injuries resulting from the IOC decision. We are calling on them to instigate immediate review and remove these boxers from the female category,” she said.
Regarding sex testing, Nic Lochlainn explained that this used to be done by a simple cheek swab, but the testing was stopped before the 2000 Olympics. She went on to say “We are calling for resumption of sex testing of all athletes who enter the female category, and the removal of any athlete that is found to be male. The category exists to allow women and girls to compete fairly and safely and should be protected.”
The IBA last night issued a statement in relation to the controversy saying that “on 24 March 2023, IBA disqualified athletes Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships New Delhi 2023.”
“This disqualification was a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA Regulations. This decision, made after a meticulous review, was extremely important and necessary to uphold the level of fairness and utmost integrity of the competition,” the statement said.
“Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.”
“The decision made by IBA on 24 March 2023, was subsequently ratified by the IBA Board of Directors on 25 March 2023,” it added.
The IBA said that the disqualification was based on two tests conducted on both athletes at the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul 2022 and the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi 2023.
They added that Lin Yu-ting did not appeal the IBA’s decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), “thus rendering the decision legally binding” – and that “Imane Khelif initially appealed the decision to CAS but withdrew the appeal during the process, also making the IBA decision legally binding”.
Dusty -this is very important I think.
“Our Committees have rigorously reviewed and endorsed the decision made during the World Championships. While IBA remains committed to ensuring competitive fairness in all of our events, we express concern over the inconsistent application of eligibility criteria by other sporting organizations, including those overseeing the Olympic Games. The IOC’s differing regulations on these matters, in which IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety,” they said.
However, the IOC’s spokesperson Mark Adams told the media in Paris this week that: “Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules. They are women in their passports and it is stated that is the case”.
“They are eligible by the rules of the federation, which was set in 2016, and which worked for Tokyo too, to compete as women, which is what they are. And we fully support that,” he added.
So, we quoted Mr Adams above. Here’s a mate of his ( 0.1% of women with penises, eh?):
Meanwhile, Alan Neale on his substack When we are real, writes:
The Paris Olympics
Normalising the violation of sex boundaries
Aug 01, 2024
As I was putting together this morning’s post, news was coming through of the battering of Italian boxer Angela Carini by a man in the Paris Olympics. I wondered whether to refer to it, as a particularly horrific example of the male “violation of boundaries and assault on women’s rights’” I was writing about. I decided against, as it might have created unnecessary confusion - the man who battered Angela Carini is probably a man with a DSD (Difference in Sex Development), rather than a man who ’identifies’ as a woman. Yet for anyone concerned about fairness or safety in women’s sports, the difference is irrelevant - it is men in women’s sports that are the problem, not a particular type of men.
Coverage in the mainstream media has been, with some notable exceptions, appalling. BBC radio’s World at One, for example, presented the man as if he was a woman with unusually high levels of testosterone, rather than a man with typically male levels of testosterone. Unforgivably, the report included a BBC sports reporter saying he was not a doctor but he could tell that Carini was not seriously hurt. BBC radio returned to the topic with a typically biassed take in its late evening news programme, The World Tonight, interviewing a ‘trans’ male boxing manager and a ‘trans’ male academic, but no-one else.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that what happened in this morning’s fight was not an unfortunate accident, but the outcome of a deliberate decision by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) to prioritise ‘inclusion’ (based on ‘gender’ or DSDs) over the safety of women athletes. This is particularly important in contact sports like boxing, where, as biologist Emma Hilton has noted, “the power gap between a male and a female punch is 162%. That is, males can punch 2.6 times harder than women.”
The male in today’s fight, and another male in tomorrow’s, were both DNA tested by the International Boxing Association (IBA) at last year’s world boxing competition in New Delhi. They were both found to be male, and disqualified from competing further in women’s boxing. The IBA tests were dismissed by the IOC, because to accept them would challenge the IOC ‘inclusion’ policy. Instead, the IOC’s only test was the sex marker in the participant’s passport (another argument for an end to sex falsification in identity documents).
The Paris Olympics started with men parodying women at the opening ceremony, continued with allowing a child rapist to participate in the beach volleyball, and are now glorifying male violence against women in the boxing ring. Paris will go down in history as the Olympics that glorified male violence against women, and normalised the destruction of the boundaries protecting women and women’s sport.
The next Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, in a State, California, whose administration happily places women offenders in men’s prisons. Will they make a stand and protect women’s sports? I doubt it. Will we have to wait until a woman is killed before sense and fairness returns to the administration of the Olympic Games? I hope not.
Sarah Ditum on Unherd ( The Olympics are not safe for women Imane Khelif punctured the myth that sex is immaterial 02 August) reports:
It looked like a man punching a woman. Algeria’s Imane Khelif, at 5’10”, is only two inches taller than Italy’s Angela Carini; but watching the two in the ring of the women’s 66kg boxing at the Olympics, the difference between them was painfully obvious. Khelif’s hard, rangy body had more reach, and more power. After taking two ferocious blows, Carini abandoned the bout, receiving the final result in devastated tears.
It looked like a man punching a woman because, according to the International Boxing Association, Khelif is not a woman. In 2023, Khelif was disqualified from the World Boxing Championships along with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting — “a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition”. This decision was based, not on testosterone levels, but on “a separate and recognised test, whereby the specifics remain confidential”.
A Russian-language statement (the IBA is Russian-led) put it more bluntly: “Based on the results of DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to deceive their colleagues and pretended to be women. Based on the results of the tests, it was proven that they have XY chromosomes.” Lin did not appeal, while Khelif initiated an appeal and then withdrew it, meaning that in both cases, the judgement became legally binding.
But not binding on the Olympics, which withdrew recognition from the IBA earlier this year over multiple concerns over governance. That means the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is free to apply its own rules on sex categories in sport. IOC spokesperson Mark Adams warned against starting a “witch hunt… These are regular athletes who have competed for many years in boxing; they are entirely eligible and they are women on their passports.”
Which would be a totally acceptable way to classify sex, if the fight was between passports, rather than two bone-and-sinew bodies. Khelif is apparently not female, in a category designed for female athletes. And while the IOC has been keen to emphasise that this controversy is wholly unrelated to the contentious matter of trans women in sport, that is an impossible separation to maintain. The question of how sex should be defined — by chromosomes, by hormone levels or by legal marker on a passport — is the heart of the argument over inclusion.
What happened in the ring in Paris is a riposte to all the absurd claims that sex is immaterial to athletic performance. Witness, for example, the writers Rebecca Jordan-Young and Katrina Karkazis, who argued in a 2012 New York Times op-ed for “letting go of the idea that the ultimate goal of a fair policy is to protect the ‘purity’ of women’s competitions”. If inclusion is the objective, “then sex-segregated competition is just one of many possible options, and in many cases it might not be the best one”.
“What happened in the ring in Paris is a riposte to all the absurd claims that sex is immaterial to athletic performance.”
And anyway, doesn’t the enforcement of sex categories simply re-instil bad old stereotypes about female weakness and vulnerability? That, at least, is what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believes. “Excluding women who are trans hurts all women,” says the organisation’s self-identified factsheet on sports. “It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests or accusations of being ‘too masculine’ or ‘too good’ at their sport to be a ‘real’ woman.” History professor Johanna Mellis even suggested in The Guardian that women’s sports categories might have been invented by men “to limit our athletic success and opportunities by reinforcing sexist notions of cisgender girls and women as the ‘weaker, slower sex’”.
From there, it’s a short distance to travel to the often-repeated claim that, as an article in LGBTQ+ magazine Them put it, sex differences should be viewed “much like the way we view Michael Phelps’s abnormal wingspan”. Athletes are, by definition, physical exceptions. A male person who has been legally recognised as female is simply another example of biological variation, and — claimed sports correspondent Jonathan Liew (now of The Guardian, but then writing in The Independent) — perhaps one to be celebrated: he claimed that, “in a way, it would be inspiring” if trans women came to dominate women’s sport.
So far, chromosomes notwithstanding, Khelif has not dominated women’s boxing. XY chromosomes notwithstanding, Khelif lost in the quarter-final of the Tokyo Olympics to Kellie Harrington of Ireland, who went on to take the gold: BBC 5 Live boxing analyst Steve Bunce pointed out that Khelif is “not a devastating puncher” and has ever only achieved five stoppages. The implication, perhaps, is that Carini could have fought on, and maybe even beaten Khelif if she’d been good enough. Maybe so.
But genetically male athletes do not only become a problem in women’s sport when they’re successful. Every XY athlete “included” means an XX athlete pushed out. In combat or collision sports, they also imperil the female athletes they compete against. According to the organisation Women in Sport, male athletes have (on average) 40-50% greater upper limb strength and 12kg more skeletal muscle mass when compared to age-matched female athletes at any given body weight.
A technically accomplished woman might win a fight against a man, but the risk of injury she takes in the process is immense. So Casini had every right to weigh her own safety. After the bout, she said: “It could have been the match of a lifetime, but I had to preserve my life as well in that moment.” Boxing is inherently dangerous — but there is a very different level of exposure in agreeing to be punched by another woman, and agreeing to be punched by a man.
This is the difference that proponents of eliminating sex categories in sport cannot acknowledge. Some, like Liew, may tacitly accept it while being fundamentally unconcerned about what that would mean in practice for women in sport — perhaps because they consider women’s sport to be fundamentally unserious. (“Sometimes we forget that there are bigger things than sport,” wrote Liew in his Independent piece, which is not an observation he ever appears to have made about men’s sport.)
But for others, particularly for women, and perhaps most particularly for women who are not actively involved in physical pursuits, there is a kind of hope in this denialism. They would like to believe that women’s physical disadvantage compared to men really is a purely, or at least largely, social phenomenon. They recognise women’s inferior status, and they understand that this is tied to the body; but they believe that the body is the cause of the inferiority, and so the body becomes politically inconvenient. They choose instead a tactful fiction of physiological equality — if not in the here and now, then in the inclusive Jerusalem to come.
The female body can, certainly, do more than the male authorities who run sports have historically liked to believe: there is a long and weird tradition of claiming that exercise will cause a woman’s uterus to fall out. Given fair access to training and competition (something which is still very far from assured), women do become faster, stronger, more aggressive. I know this from personal experience. I started powerlifting in my late thirties, and in my forties can pull weights I once thought cartoonishly huge. But I also know that the same weights pulled by a man would be much less impressive, which is why comparing myself to men tells me nothing at all about my progression.
Mixed-sex sports simply lead to exceptional women being forced out by mediocre men: brute strength besting accomplishment. The Olympics’ failure to protect women’s sport is a tragedy for female athletes, but it also makes a travesty of the competition overall. What should be a celebration of excellence becomes, through the IOC’s contempt for fairness and safety in women’s sport, the elevation of the mediocre. After decades of obfuscation and inanity over gender and sport, the truth of it all became clear in an entirely unnecessary meeting: between an apparently male fist and a female face.
Josh Alston in Daily Mail Australia ( Aussie Olympic boxer Harry Garside reveals fear is gripping his female teammates as they call out 'biologically male' Iman Khelif's 'dangerous' 46-second demolition of Angela Carini 02 August) reports:
Australian fighter Harry Garside has revealed his female teammates are 'quite scared' after Algerian fighter Iman Khelif's 'dangerous' and highly controversial 46-second win over Italian Angela Carini at the Paris Olympics.
His remarks come as Aussie boxer Marissa Williamson Pohlman lashed out at the International Olympic Committee over the scandal.
The women's 66kg division has attracted global attention after the IOC confirmed that two boxers who were disqualified from last year's world championships for failing gender eligibility tests were allowed to fight in Paris.
The full article is here:
Update 415
I am ploughing on given that the boxing controversy at the Woolympics continues apace. I am pleased to say that, although she lost, the latest opponent of Mr Khelif was not hurt.
Nicola Adams has come out in support of the women boxers ( see further below) so she is tonight’s Hero!
The Woolympics
As clear as ever, Helen Joyce on Talk TV explains the situation with male boxers with Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs) taking part in women’s boxing.
In an interview on Spectator TV, Marshi Smith, co-founder of ICONS ( Independent Council on Women’s Sport) deals with the same subject and moves on to larping men in general participating in women’s sport.
Daniel Davis in The Mail Online ( Gender row boxer Imane Khelif breaks down in tears after beating Hungary's Anna Luca Hamori to guarantee medal at the Paris Olympics in wake of eligibility test storm 03 August) reports:
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif sobbed after her [HIS!] victory against Hungary's Anna Luca Hamori in the 66kg category at the Olympics guaranteed her a medal.
Khelif is one of two boxers competing in Paris despite being banned from last year's World Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA) after allegedly failing gender eligibility tests - a storm that has sparked controversy.
The International Olympic Committee said that she [HE!] had been disqualified after failing a testosterone level test and prior to Saturday's fight, Hamori insisted she did not 'think it is fair' that her opponent was able to compete.
The full article is here:
Oliver Brown in The Telegraph ( A beaten woman weeping, viewers in uproar, Olympics engulfed by rancour – just another day at boxing 02 August) reports:
After finding herself easily dismantled in all three rounds, Sitora Turdibekova did not linger for the post-fight handshake. Instead she swept out of the ring in tears, distraught at being so conspicuously outclassed by her opponent in reach, speed and power. If it felt as though we had been here before, we had. Barely 24 hours earlier, in fact. For the Uzbek’s conqueror was Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, a boxer who, just like Algeria’s Imane Khelif, had recorded two sex tests in two years revealing the presence of XY chromosomes.
While the fight was not as visceral a spectacle as Khelif’s 46-second destruction of Italy’s Angela Carini, the outcome was the same: a beaten woman weeping, a viewing public in uproar, and an Olympics engulfed by rancour and recrimination. This is a scandal assuming dimensions that the International Olympic Committee can no longer control, with each crushing victory by a biologically male fighter over a female confirming the impression that it has abandoned its fundamental duty of care. [Dusty - that about sums it up!!]
The full article is here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2024/08/02/lin-yu-ting-imane-khelif-olympics-boxing-paris-ioc/
STOP PRESS
It now appears that Lin Hu-ting is fighting Bulgaria’s Svetlana Staneva tomorrow!? I don’t know how this confusion has happened!!??
Reduxx have reported that the IBA will pay prize money to Angela Carini. Good for them but I trust they will also pay the other women who are being knocked out of the tournament by these men.
https://x.com/ReduxxMag/status/1819499152071434573
Sky News ( Team GB two-time Olympic champion Nicola Adams speaks out on gender boxing row 02 August) reports:
Adams wins gold at Rio 2016. Pic: AP© Associated Press
Adams, 41, posted her views on X on Friday after Carini withdrew from her fight against Algeria's Imane Khelif, who is a biological woman [ Dusty - NO! Man with DSD], just 46 seconds into the bout on Thursday.
Carini claimed she had "never felt a punch like this", and that she was unable to continue the 66kg match at the Paris Games due to the pain Khelif had inflicted on her nose.
Adams, who won gold for Team GB at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, described the fight as "unfair and dangerous", expressing her regret that "another fighter [has been] forced to give up on her Olympic dreams".
The full article is here:
Tom Morgan in The Telegraph ( IBA comes out swinging for IOC: Inside the toxic dispute causing Olympic boxing’s gender row 03 August) reports:
Italy's Angela Carini was reduced to tears after two punches from Algeria's Imane Khelif - Getty Images/Fabio Bozzani
Imane Khelif is not alone in landing some brutal right hooks in Paris this week. “We will not stand by and allow women’s boxing to be destroyed,” was the battle cry from the International Boxing Association as it came out swinging for the International Olympic Committee. “There will be no athletes with high levels of testosterone competing in women’s boxing championships. We will defend women boxers wherever they compete including the Olympics.”
On the face of it, IBA president Umar Kremlev’s outburst to the Inside the Games website, and anyone else within earshot, only echoed the sentiments of eminent campaigners for fair sport. Studies show higher testosterone carries a huge safety risk for women in any combat sport. Men, the science shows, punch 2.6 times harder than women; the biggest documented performance advantage in any sport. The IOC, therefore, must swallow criticism this week from the likes of Nicola Adams, Judy Murray, JK Rowling and even Donald Trump.
But behind the scenes, as the drama has reached boiling point, the main source of bitterness among senior figures at the IOC is that the IBA was able to steal a march. The IOC and IBA have been in all-out war since at least 2019 when the boxing body was suspended over concerns around its finances, governance, ethics, refereeing and judging.
The full article is here:
Thanks to the Feminist Legal Clinic for the next piece via Reduxx. It turns out that another international boxing body had warned the IOC about this situation but were ignored.
International Olympic Committee Was Warned About Male Boxers, World Boxing Organization Vice President Says (03 August)
A Hungarian sports official has come out and stated that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is not female. István Kovács, the European Vice President of the World Boxing Association and former Secretary General of the International Boxing Association, told Hungarian press that he had warned the International Olympic Committee about males participating in women’s boxing as early as 2022, but that nothing was done.
In a shocking statement made to Magyar Nemzet yesterday, Kovács confirmed the speculation surrounding the Algerian boxer, adding that it had been known as early as 2022 that Khelif was biologically male.
“The problem was not with the level of Khelif’s testosterone, because that can be adjusted nowadays, but with the result of the gender test, which clearly revealed that the Algerian boxer is biologically male,” Kovács said in an interview with Magyar Nemzet, adding that a total of five boxers had been examined including Khelif by the International Boxing Association, and all of them “were indeed men.”
Kovács asserted that he personally reported shocking result immediately to the International Olympics Committee, “but as unbelievable as it is, they have not responded to this to this day.” The retired world champion boxer also commented that he recently spoke with former women’s world champion Mária Kovács, who bitterly remarked that in modern women’s boxing, “there is a 20 percent chance that one of the athletes will suffer a testicular injury.”
Male athletes with DSDs are sometimes actively sought out by national coaches because of their tremendous “natural” advantage over biological females.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, male runners with DSDs won all three top spots in the Women’s 800m race.
Part 2 will follow shortly, Terven
#BeMorePorcupine
#XX
#SaveWomensSport