A female boxer has come forward to reveal that Imane Khelif had “male power” and used “male techniques” during a sparring match in Sofia, Bulgaria. Joana Nwamerue said she met Khelif in Bulgaria, and was told by members of the Algerian National Team that Khelif was a woman who had simply been biologically altered by living in the mountains.
Providing brief comment to Reduxx, Nwamerue, who is so far undefeated in her boxing career, said she felt it was important to speak out because of her support for women in her home country of Bulgaria.
“[Khelif] has some kind of internal issues. But he is a man. 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 told us, asserting multiple times that she believes the Algerian is male.
Reduxx reached out to Nwamerue after she appeared on a podcast with her friend Georgi Petkov to discuss the situation with the women’s boxing controversies at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
While speaking with Petkov, Nwamerue revealed she had been matched to fight against Khelif during a sparring session in Sofia, which took place in February ahead of the annual Strandzha Cup. During their time in the ring, Nwamerue says Khelif was “impudent” during the session, mocking her by sticking his tongue out and smiling at her.
“I think we played 3-4 sparring sessions. I have a record of everything. I can confirm that this is a man to me. Male power. Men’s techniques, everything,” Nwamerue explains. While she notes she was not injured during the match, she says she had concerns for the safety of the other female boxers Khelif would face.
“I’m a tomboy, I take a lot of hits and I know how to hold on. But the other girls are not so strong.”
The issue of Khelif’s sex came up during the Sofia training session, with members of the Algerian National Team apparently playing defense for Khelif and insisting to other participants that he was a woman who had somehow been biologically altered by living in the mountains.
“[Khelif’s] teammates came to me and told me ‘Imane is not a man. 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,'” Nwamerue says. “So myself and my coach watched [Khelif] and I said ‘that can’t be possible.’ Everywhere has people living in the mountains. It’s absurd.”
Nwamerue adds that her coach replied incredulously, questioning the “mountain” theory of Khelif’s physical abnormalities by noting that other world and European boxing federations had implemented bans on him, and that “only the Olympics” was allowing Khelif to compete.
“Obviously there’s some competition between federations and they’re shitting on one another, but it’s extremely unfair. It’s like pitting a motorcycle against a bicycle,” Nwamerue explains. “For people who don’t understand combat sports. Motor vs bicycle. Will the bicycle be faster and win, or the motorbike?”
Nwamerue is in the same weight class as Khelif, and had been one of the female boxers selected by Bulgaria to go to the Olympic qualifiers in Bangkok. But, despite intensive training, Nwamerue did not make the final Olympic pick. Her colleague, Svetlana Staneva, moved ahead to represent the nation in the Featherweight (57KG) category.
In a separate interview given to Sportal Bulgaria last week, Nwamerue spoke out against Lin Yu-Ting following the Taiwanese boxer’s victory against Staneva, and praised her countrywoman for her performance.
“It was one of the strongest matches I watched. I congratulate Staneva and say that I am proud to know her,” Nwamerue said, adding: “What impressed me the most was her gesture.”
Staneva launched an international movement following the match with Lin after making an “XX” symbol at the crowd using her fingers, a clear nod to the chromosome controversy that had surrounded Lin and Khelif.
“I think that for me both of the current cases in boxing – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting – are men. Even if they have childhood photos in dresses, to me they are men,” Nwamerue says, ending by calling for a separate federation to be made for those with issues surrounding their gender identity or biological sex.
“People who have internal problems, so to speak, should not compete against women and should fix their problems before taking any initiatives. If [Lin] is a woman with male characteristics, this is still not okay. Once you have been tested for internal problems and you are not a ‘clear woman,’ if I may say so, then these things remain. You are a woman according to documents and photo, but to me you are a man. It’s not fair to us women.”
As previously reported by Reduxx, it is known that other national boxing teams expressed concerns about Khelif long before the Algerian’s controversial Olympic appearance.
Speaking to Radio Marca, Rafa Lozano, former Olympic boxer and the Technical Commissioner of the Spanish boxing team, stated that at a training camp in Spain, Khelif caused injuries to every woman he fought.
“They were doing a retreat at Blume and we couldn’t put [Khelif] with anyone. We put [Khelif] with Jennifer Fernandez and it hurt her. Whoever we put [Khelif] with was injured.”
The situation became so dire that the team found it necessary to place Khelif with a male boxer during sparring matches in order to “make it even.”
Despite some supporters claiming otherwise, extensive information has been repeatedly provided by the International Boxing Association and numerous sports scientists, coaches, and doctors, who have confirmed that neither Khelif nor Lin are genetically female. While neither is believed to be transgender, both are suspected to be impacted by a Difference of Sexual Development.
Further confirmation of the boxers’ karyotype was given by Alan Abrahamson, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, who is a specialist in Olympic sports and member of the International Olympic Committee’s press committee. In a statement, Abrahamson said that he had personally viewed the results of the hotly-contested chromosomal tests ordered by the IBA in 2022 and 2023.
Abrahamson revealed that the tests “concluded the boxer’s DNA was that of a male consisting of XY chromosomes.”
Khelif’s trainer, Georges Cazorla, has similarly confirmed that a French endocrinologist found a “problem with [Khelif’s] hormones” and “with [Khelif’s] chromosomes.” Describing Khelif’s reaction to the test results he stated, “this poor young girl was devastated, devastated to suddenly discover that she might not be a girl.”
EDIT: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated in one line that Svetlana Staneva fought Imane Khelif, rather than Lin Yu-Ting. The article has been updated to correct that line.
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