Algeria’s Khelif wins boxing welterweight gold, says critics are “enemies”

Algeria’s Imane Khelif on Friday beat China’s Yang Liu to claim the welterweight gold medal of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

The female boxer who was thrown into the centre of a gender dispute at the Paris Games in crushing fashion sent her new-found devotees into delirium with her performance.

Khelif who was a silver medallist at the 2022 World Championships and Taiwan boxer Lin Yu-ting had been in the spotlight as part of a gender dispute in Paris.

This had dominated the headlines and had been the subject of much discussion on social media platforms.

Khelif, who won by unanimous decision on Friday, is the first Algerian woman to earn an Olympic boxing title.

She is also the first boxer from her country to claim the gold medal since Hocine Soltani at the Atlanta Games in 1996.

Women’s boxing, though, has been in the Olympics since London 2012.

Khelif has however insisted she was born a woman and has been living as such, and she restated this after winning the Olympics welterweight gold medal on Friday.

“I am a woman like any woman. I was born a woman and I have lived as a woman but there are enemies to success and they can’t digest my success,” Khelif, 25, told a press conference.

“This is my dream. Eight years, my dream. I’m Olympic champion, gold medallist. I’m very happy. Eight years, I work,” she said.

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“Eight years, no sleep. Eight years, tired. Now I’m Olympic champion. I’m very happy. I want to thank all the people (who have) come to support me. People, Algeria, and all the people, Paris.

“This gold medal is the best answer to the fierce campaign against me.”

Yang, on her part, said: “I’m happy for her. I respect everybody, and I will even learn from her (boxing-wise).”