France’s Villepinte (AP) — Angela Carini and Imane Khelif traded some sharp blows during their 46-second bout at the Paris arena. They were sufficient to convince Carini that her Olympic career was over.
Abandoning her match, the Italian boxer suddenly left her Algerian opponent and headed to her corner on Thursday. This is very uncommon in Olympic boxing.
The referee raised Khelif’s hand professionally, but Carini didn’t shake it; instead, she broke down in tears in the ring. Shortly later, a still-crying Carini said that the agony from those first blows was the reason she had resigned.
“A sharp pain shot through my nose, and like a seasoned boxer, I said, ‘Enough,’ because I couldn’t finish the match and I didn’t want to.” Carini said.
Khelif’s attendance in the Paris Olympics has caused controversy as she was excluded from the 2023 world championships for failing an unclear gender eligibility requirement.
Carini, who had a bloodstain on her trunks, said that she wasn’t refusing to fight Khelif or making a political statement. Carini went on to say that she lacked the authority to determine whether Khelif should be permitted to compete.
Carini said, “I just did my job as a boxer.” “I battled when I entered the ring. I completed the final kilometre with a shattered heart, but I did it with my head held high.
Later, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni paid Carini a visit and consoled the boxer in a picture that was shared on Meloni’s Instagram page.
Meloni added, “I know you won’t give up, Angela, and I know that one day, with hard work and sweat, you will win what you deserve.” on a final, level playing field.”
Khelif is a skilled amateur who took home a silver medal at the 2022 world championship of the International Boxing Association. Shortly before her gold-medal match at last year’s championships, the IBA, which has been barred from the Olympics since 2019 due to years of disagreements with the IOC, disqualified her due to what it claimed to be increased testosterone levels.
The audience at the North Paris Arena cheered when the 25-year-old stepped into the ring, but they weren’t sure why the fight ended so abruptly. Emanuele Renzini, the coach of Italy, said that he spoke with Carini before the match and offered to let her withdraw sooner, but the boxer was “very determined” to fight till the very first minute.
Carini said, “I am heartbroken because I am a fighter.” “I learnt how to be a fighter from my father. I have consistently entered the ring with honour and faithfully served my nation. I terminated the contest because I was unable to fight longer and couldn’t accomplish it this time.
If Khelif defeats Hungary’s first Olympic women’s boxer, Anna Luca Hamori, on Saturday in her quarterfinal round, she might win an Olympic medal.
Hamori did not seem concerned about going up against Khelif.
“I’m not scared,” said Australian Marissa Williamson Pohlman’s opponent, Hamori. Social media and the news narrative don’t interest me. It will mean more to me if I prevail if she or he is a male.
According to her passport, Khelif is a woman.
Although they have participated in the same competition before, Hamori and Khelif have never sparred. Hamori has said time and time again that she isn’t concerned about the issue since it is only getting in the way of her pursuit of gold.
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Hamori said, “I’m attempting to avoid using my phone before the fight.” “I want no part of the story, the news, or the comments. All I want is to keep my attention on myself. I believe this is the key since I did it before my past two bouts, but we’ll see.
Hamori was only able to dismiss Carini’s resignation with a shrug.
“She made the decision,” Hamori said. “I don’t understand; I assumed that every boxer had the same mentality as me—to never give up. However, she made the decision. We are unaware of the cause. Although it’s her life, I know I want to have a life similar to hers.
Following years of participation in amateur competitions worldwide, Taiwanese athletes Khelif and Lin Yu-ting have suddenly come under intense scrutiny for their attendance in Paris. IBA world champion Lin won titles in 2018 and 2022, however the organisation disqualified her from a bronze medal last year on the grounds that she did not fulfil certain qualifying conditions in a biochemical test.
On Friday, Lin starts her run in Paris. As the top seed in the 57-kilogram event, she faces Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova in her first match; nevertheless, Olympic seeding is often not a reliable indicator of the best medal contenders in a division.
Declaring that some foreign media sources have been “lies” and “unethically targeting and maligning our esteemed athlete, Imane Khelif, with baseless propaganda,” the Algerian Olympic Committee released a statement on Wednesday.
Meloni expressed disapproval of Carini’s decision to box Khelif when touring Italian athletes in the Olympic Village on Thursday. She claimed to have been against letting athletes who had “genetically male” traits to compete against females since 2021.
In an effort to be nondiscriminatory, “we have to pay attention that we’re actually discriminating” against women’s rights, Meloni said.
Two-time Olympians Khelif and Lin competed in the Tokyo Games. For ten years, Lin has competed at the highest level in amateur boxing, and for six years, Khelif.
The boxers’ right to participate this week was defended by the IOC many times. This year, in Paris, Olympic boxing achieved gender parity for the first time, with 124 men and 124 women participating.
The IOC said that the gender-related regulations that were in effect at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics were the basis for their eligibility judgements regarding boxers. Over the previous three years, a number of sports, including World Aquatics, World Athletics, and the International Cycling Union, changed their gender regulations. The track organisation also strengthened regulations for athletes with variations in sexual development last year.
The IOC is in control of boxing in Paris because it took away the IBA’s Olympic status after years of financial transparency issues, governance issues, and several alleged cases of corruption in the officiating and judging.
Russian president Umar Kremlev is in charge of the IBA. He relocated the majority of the IBA’s activities to Russia and secured main sponsorship from the Russian state-owned company Gazprom.
Since then, more than thirty-one IBA members have left the organisation to join World Boxing, which aims to become the official regulatory body of the sport in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics by becoming recognised by the IOC.
The IBA has aggressively used the two boxers’ attendance in Paris as an opportunity to attack the IOC. In a last-ditch effort to overturn the IOC, the IBA appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the IOC’s suspension earlier this year.
The boxers were “subject to a separate and recognised test” for their disqualification, according to a statement released by the banned group on Wednesday, claiming neither fighter had a “testosterone examination” the previous year. The IBA declined to provide an explanation, saying that the test’s “specifics remain confidential.”
Russian fighters were permitted to participate under the Russian flag in the 2023 world championships by the IBA, despite the IOC’s recommendations to the contrary. Only after Khelif beat Russian boxer Azalia Amineva in the competition did the regulatory committee disqualify him.