Algerian Boxer Imane Khelif Wins Olympic Gold, but Sport’s Future Remains a Question

PARIS—Imane Khelif, the Algerian fighter whose presence here ignited a global furor about gender and sports, is officially an Olympic champion. 

What happens next will determine not just her place in boxing moving forward—but the future of boxing at the Games altogether. 

Khelif’s tumultuous journey to a gold medal, which culminated Friday with a victory over China’s Yang Liu, exposed the remarkable level of dysfunction at the top of international boxing. The situation has threatened the status of an event that has been in the Olympics without interruption for more than a century. 

The International Boxing Association disqualified Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting from last year’s world championships after saying they failed an unspecified gender test, the details of which remain a mystery. That news went mostly unnoticed until Khelif’s first opponent in Paris, Italy’s Angela Carini, withdrew from their bout after 46 seconds.