Italy’s Angela Carini abandons fight with Algeria’s Imane Khelif, who failed unspecified gender test, after 46 seconds

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Carini Khelif fight

PARIS — Less than a minute into the Carini Khelif fight, Italy’s Angela Carini decided she was done. The Algerian boxer had been barred from the 2023 world championships. Imane Khelif failed a gender eligibility test, affecting the Carini Khelif fight. #CariniKhelifFight

She raised her hand to stop the fight after absorbing a flurry of powerful jabs from Algeria’s Imane Khelif in the opening seconds of the first round.

Carini told her coach Emanuel Renzini that her nose hurt too much for her to continue. Renzini urged her to try to make it to the end of the first round so that they could talk further, but Carini raised her hand again after taking just one more punch from Khelif and asked once more to abandon the fight.

“She’s too strong,” Renzini recalled Carini telling him.

A tearful Carini addressed reporters for 20 minutes after the fight, apologizing to her country for lasting only 46 seconds and lamenting that she had worked so hard for this moment only to have it end so quickly.

Khelif’s dominant performance on Thursday will inflame the debate about her and Lin Yu-ting competing at the Paris Olympics. Last year, at the World Boxing Championships in New Delhi, Khelif was disqualified before her gold-medal bout. This was due to International Boxing Association rules preventing athletes with XY chromosomes from competing in women’s events. The IBA disqualified Yu-Ting before her bronze medal bout for the same reason. #CariniKhelifFight

The International Olympic Committee has stripped the IBA of its status as boxing’s global governing body. This is due to long-running governance issues and judging scandals. Boxing in Paris now falls under the IOC’s Paris 2024 Boxing unit. They have more relaxed rules and disregarded last year’s gender eligibility tests for Khelif and Yu-Ting.


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