Olympic women's boxing eligibility controversy is a reminder of the harm in trusting bad faith actors
Imane Khelif's 46-second win over Angela Carini sparked flood of misinformed takes
First, let's keep the focus on the actual protagonist.
Imane Khelif, a 25-year-old welterweight from Algeria, qualified for the quarterfinals of the Olympic women's boxing tournament by dismantling Italy's Angela Carini in the round of 16. Their bout lasted 46 seconds, several of which included Carini waving her hand at the referee as if she had an imaginary white flag jammed into her glove. Moments earlier, Khelif had smashed her with a textbook straight right hand to the face, landing with enough force to make Carini abandon her Olympic dream.
That right hand, we know now, also ignited a culture war.
Within minutes, allegations of cheating rippled through the internet. Bestselling author J.K. Rowling weighed in and piled on, as did Jake and Logan Paul, Hall of Fame boxer Oscar De La Hoya, and retired football star Dez Bryant. They all accuse Khelif, who was born, raised, and has only ever lived as a woman, of some form of gender chicanery.
Was she intersex? Transgender? A straight-up man masquerading as a woman? None of the people trolling Khelif really knew, but they all seemed so sure. Mainstream news organizations added their own stories questioning Khelif's gender credentials, relying on evidence that looks credible but falls short in ways we'll explore later. Respectable outlets didn't call Khelif a gender doper, but didn't make clear that she wasn't one.
All because Khelif, a quarterfinalist in Tokyo three years ago, mollywhopped Carini, who wept about it afterward, and refused to shake the victor's hand post fight.
WATCH | Algeria's Khelif cruises past Italy's Carini in Olympic women's boxing round of 16:
After one day and countless inflammatory, defamatory, offensive social media posts from misogynists across the world, Carini was ready to apologize to Khelif. Her in-ring reaction, she says, was pure disappointment, and not an attempt to undermine Khelif's womanhood. Whatever the gender rules in the Olympics are, Carini is convinced Khelif is following them.
"All this controversy makes me sad," Carini told Gazzetta dello Sport, an Italian publication.
Later she elaborated on her demeanour after the bout.
"Actually I want to apologize to her and to everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke," she said, adding that she would hug Khelif if she saw her in person.
This is welcome, self-aware, mature stuff from Carini. I'd say the apology takes balls, except somebody might crib that line and use it as evidence that Carini is the real gender cheat.
Either way there's a teachable for everyone in Carini's gesture, about pride and humility, and summoning the strength to admit you were wrong. Will other people follow her lead?
We'll see.
The dangers of bad faith actors
As usual, the biggest lesson is the one the media refuses to learn about the danger of taking bad faith actors at their word. We think we're publishing solid info and spicy quotes. The person feeding it to us knows we're polishing and amplifying their message, even if it makes our audience dumber and more divided.
The Olympics are the perfect setting for this kind of ginned-up fake scandal. Every four years, familiar subplots like race, gender and geopolitics surge to the forefront, propelled there by developments in sports, like women's boxing, that casual sports fans don't consume very often. We don't always have context for what we're seeing, so all kinds of bad takes can fill that knowledge void.
In Khelif's clinical destruction of Carini, drive-by viewers thought they saw a bully using her size to steamroll smaller opponents, and because they hadn't seen any other women's boxers, couldn't envision one ever touching the Algerian. Pull the camera back and you'll see that Khelif is 37-9 with 5 knockouts. It's an impressive record, but not impossible. She's top-tier, but not untouchable.
But when people unearthed information that Khelif, along with Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan, had failed a gender test at the 2023 IBA World Championships, they saw a cheater, a quasi man using his unfair physical advantages to batter women.
About that gender test…
Line up the details that way – ruling by a world governing body, defended by its president – and it all sounds very official. News organizations depend on credentials like those to determine whether info is legit.
Except IBA isn't running the Olympic boxing tournament this year. The IOC banished the organization over long-running, deep-seated corruption. And Kremlev gave his XY chromosome interview to Russia's Tass News Agency, an outlet North Americans should view skeptically on its best days.
And Kremlev?
He's on Twitter right now, ranting about how this Olympic boxing tournament is "outright sodomy," and calling IOC chairman Thomas Bach the "chief sodomite."
Are we really ready to take his claims on gender at face value? It's sort of like trusting Donald Trump to explain the fine points of how race, nationality, heritage and identity intertwine. He's not just uninformed; he has a vested interest in misinforming the rest of us.
WATCH | Former IOC medical adviser weighs in on women's Olympic boxing discussion:
Here's what we know for sure:
Khelif and Yu-Ting have always competed in the only gender category they have ever known. They haven't changed since 2021, when Khelif fought in the Olympics without prompting complaints or a tidal wave of bad social media takes. IBA's rules have shifted, in ways the organization has never made clear on paper.
Do these athletes have high testosterone?
Y chromosomes?
Did they simply flunk somebody's eye test?
We might never find out, because IBA has yet to write down and publish these new regulations. We just know that IBA moved the line, and now Khelif and Yu-Ting are on the wrong side – at least as it concerns IBA, whom we aren't sure we can trust.
The most trustworthy character in all this drama?
Khelif, who used to sell scrap metal with her mom to help finance her boxing career, and who has improved under the tutelage of Pedro Diaz, the masterful Cuban expat now guiding Team Algeria. The boxer has shown up ready for Paris, has never hidden who she is, and has mostly spoken with her fists.
Carini, like she did in her boxing match with Khelif, finishes second in this trustworthiness contest. At first she looked like a sore loser, weaponizing her tears to win sympathy at Khelif's expense, but contrition makes her look like an adult.
She's the first in a long line of people who owe Khelif an apology.
Let's see who else is man, or woman, enough to pay up.
