Shocking news out of the Olympic boxing controversy as the Technical Commissioner of the Spanish boxing team reveals that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was reportedly considered too dangerous for women to train against during a boxing retreat in Spain.
Speaking to Radio Marca, former Olympian boxer and Olympic boxing trainer Rafa Lozano revealed that he thought the inclusion of Khelif in the women’s category was unjust and dangerous to females. “I don’t see it as fair. Everyone can think what they want, but that’s how I see it,” Lozano said, recalling his observations of the Algerian during a training retreat at the sport centre CAR Blume in Madrid.
“They were doing a retreat at Blume and we couldn’t put her with anyone. We put [Khelif] with Jennifer Fernandez and it hurt her. Whoever we put [Khelif] with was injured.”
Lozano says that to avoid further injury to the women, the coaches ended up pairing Khelif up with Jose Quiles, who is one of Spain’s top male boxers, during the retreat. Quiles, 26 and one of Spain’s top boxers, was considered a more equitable match for Khelif to spar against, with Lozano noting that Khelif was only “even” after being matched against the man.
Lozano continued that he believed that allowing Lin and Khelif to compete in the female category was not appropriate, “from my point of view I don’t see it as fair.”
But Lozano is not the only sport expert who weighed in on Khelif’s ineligibility to compete against women, with another being Khelif’s own trainer.
In an exclusive interview with Le Point magazine, Khelif’s coach confirmed that the Algerian has a male karyotype and high testosterone.
Georges Cazorla told the magazine of Khelif’s distress when disqualified by the IBA in 2023, confirming that biological tests had been carried out by the IBA that revealed that Khelif may not be female.
Cazorla is the President of the Association for Research and Evaluation in Physical Activity and Sport (AREAPS), a scientific advisor, and a former lecturer University of Bordeaux who supervised the master’s thesis of Khelif’s manager, Nasser Yefsah. At the end of 2022, Yefsah contacted Cazorla to assist with Khelif’s training for the world championships, the African championships and the Olympic Games.
“The [disqualification] was based on tests. Frankly, I found it disgusting. Regardless of the results of these biological tests and, without going into detail – that is a matter for biologists and doctors – this poor young girl was devastated, devastated to suddenly discover that she might not be a girl,” Cazorla said.
He goes on to continuously assert that Khelif lived as a girl and has a “girl’s sensitivity,” but adds that Khelif has a “special” body type. When asked if individuals with “XY profiles” have specific physical advantages over those with “XX profiles,” Cazorla refused to say whether males were generally stronger than females.
“Some say that special categories should be made, but even within a group of hypoandrogenic or hyperandrogenic people, there are differences between them. There is such a large variation that we cannot constitute categories,” Cazorla said, appearing to bizarrely reject the validity of sex-based sport categories.
During the revealing interview, Cazorla claims that Khelif did not understand the meaning of signing the letter acknowledging the IBA’s test results, but says that the Algerian boxer was still taken to the Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital for assessment by endocrinologists.
Cazorla said that a doctor confirmed that there was a “a problem with [Khelif’s] hormones” and “with [Khelif’s] chromosomes,” but continued to insist during the interview that Khelif “is a woman.”
Following the meeting with the endocrinologist, Khelif was placed on testosterone suppressants in an effort to circumvent any potential testosterone-level checks made by the IOC. The IOC had not submitted athletes to chromosomal testing since 1999 and, at the Paris Olympics, only document checks were competed for the women’s boxing competitions.
“Currently, she can be compared on a muscular and biological level to a woman-woman-woman,” Cazorla says, suggesting Khelif is not seen as fully female by the coaching team.
This may finally confirm the speculation by sports scientists, who have roundly claimed that Khelif is a genetic male with a Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD).
Following the initial Reduxx report which broke the news that Khelif and another previously-disqualified athlete, Lin Yu-Ting, had been included in the Women’s Boxing at this year’s Olympics, a media storm has surrounded the two boxers. Both obtained gold in their respective categories this past week.
Over the course of the past two weeks, the International Boxing Association, which had been responsible for Khelif and Lin’s 2023 disqualifications, has stood firm in support of their past decision. The IBA has released evidence, statements, and even held a press conference to explain the reasoning for the boxer’s disqualification and had released details of the 2023 correspondence between the IBA, the boxers, and the International Olympic Committee.
During the August 5 press conference, IBA officials discussed the reasoning for the boxers being disqualified, and informed the audience that both boxers had not appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration in Sport despite facing no financial burden to do so.
The IBA also detailed their attempts to warn the IOC of the dangers of including the boxers in the female competition in an email which the IOC replied to and then allegedly ignored until the recent media storm.
It was also clarified by the IBA that the boxers were found to be ineligible due to their chromosomes, and that they were being prevented from releasing the results of the tests by the boxers’ respective National Olympic Committees of Algeria and Taiwan. But the IBA told those in attendance to “read between the lines” indicating the boxers do not have XX chromosomes and to come to their own logical conclusions.
Clarification was also given by Dr. Ioannis Filippatos, the former Chair of IBA Medical Committee who spoke at the conference and confirmed that the blood and medical tests found the boxers were male. It is reported that during the conference, BBC journalists walked out in protest.
In an IOC press conference in response to the scandal, Thomas Bach articulated that the IOC only used the legal sex of an athlete, such as that documented on their passport, to determine their eligibility to compete in the women’s category.
At one point, Bach was forced to issue a correction of an erroneous statement he made in which he said that the cases of Lin and Khelif were “not a DSD case.” A hasty clarification changed “DSD” to “transgender,” all but confirming the previous speculation on the two.
Speaking at a Sex Matters Press Briefing on the topic of the inclusion of males in women’s sports and the Olympic Boxing eligibility controversy, Dr. Emma Hilton, a developmental biologist, explained that “allowing a male into the female boxing ring is kind of the equivalent of letting a heavyweight into the ring with a lightweight.”
Dr. Hilton continued by stating that people underestimate the “chasm” of difference between male and female strength, adding: “a female has to be well over 30 kilograms heavier than a male to match strength levels.”
Further evidence of Khelif’s disproportionate strength compared to female boxers was illustrated in an interview with Mexican boxer Brianda Tamara Cruz, who boxed Khelif at the Golden Belt Series Finals in Guadalajara in 2022, the year before he was disqualified.
Speaking to El Espanol, Cruz described the fight as extraordinary.
“When I fought [Khelif], I felt it was very out of my reach, I was hurt a lot by [the] punches, I think I had never in my 13 years as a boxer felt like this, not even in my sparring with men.” Cruz went on to tell the outlet that she felt she narrowly escaped a potentially fatal situation, and the disqualification came in time to prevent such a scenario recurring, “Thank God, that day I came out of the ring well and it’s good that they finally realized.”
EDIT: A previous version of this article incorrectly named the French hospital where the endocrinology test on Khelif was completed due to a mistranslation. The article has been updated to re-label “Greater Paris University Hospital” to “Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital.”
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