Boxer Imane Khelif on the Paris Olympics 2024© AFP
Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif stated she had gained for her nation’s girls as Algeria’s Paris Games medallists acquired a hero’s welcome at Algiers airport on Monday. Khelif, who was the centre of a gender controversy on the Olympics on her approach to the ladies’s 66kg title, teenage gymnastics gold medallist Kaylia Nemour and males’s 800m bronze medallist Djamel Sedjati brandished their medals for the ready followers. The crowd cheered Khelif with chants of “Tahia Imane” (lengthy stay Imane). “The answer lay in the results of each match,” she stated. “I wanted to show the strength of performance and the presence of women in general, and Algerian women in particular.”
The International Olympic Committee took over the boxing competitors in Paris after shedding persistence with the International Boxing Association.
The IBA, led by Umar Kremlev, a Kremlin-linked oligarch, retaliated throughout the Games by saying it had disqualified Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting from its world championships final yr as a result of its exams confirmed “these are men”. The IBA had allowed each boxers to compete in Tokyo three years in the past.
Khelif, 25, addressed what she known as a “relentless campaign” on Monday.
She stated she wished “to thank the Algerian people who supported me in this ordeal and gave me strength”.
“Algerian women are an example and a model for the whole world,” the boxer stated. “Thanks to God, we have restored Algeria’s honour and flown the Algerian flag in Paris, which is the most important thing.”
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