Olympic Boxer Quits Against Opponent Who Had Previously Failed Gender Eligibility Test

Angela Carini’s bid to make her Olympic boxing dreams come true didn’t last past the first round Thursday.

The Italian chose to end her round-of-16 bout in the women's 66 kilogram division after just 46 seconds at the Paris Olympics. However, Carini's decision to abandon the match wasn’t questioned afterward. Her opponent fell under the most scrutiny.

Carini took the loss against Algeria's Imane Khelif, who was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test. Khelif won a silver medal at the 2022 worlds but was not allowed to defend that title after the International Boxing Association claimed Khelif had elevated levels of testosterone.

With the IBA banned from the Summer Games due to disputes with the International Olympic Committee, the Paris Olympics boxing tournament fell under the IOC's rules about gender eligibility. Khelif was allowed to compete as well as Chinese Tapei’s Lin Yu‑ting, who was disqualified by the IBA for the same reason as Khelif's ban at the 2023 world championships.

In a joint statement with the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU), the IOC defended "the competition's eligibility and entry regulations" that were based on the 2020 Tokyo Games. "As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of athletes are based on passports," the statement read.

The PBU and IOC also addressed the "misleading information" about Khelif and Lin stemming from "a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA" that banned the boxers "without any due process."

Carini began Thursday's fight trading punches with Khelif, but it quickly became apparent Carini had an issue. She stopped to talk to her coach Emanuel Renzini, who said afterward that Carini felt Khelif was "too strong."

Carini said she felt pain in her nose from Khelif's powerful jabs in the opening seconds. She decided she couldn't go any longer two minutes and 14 seconds into the bout.

“With the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough' ... I couldn’t finish the match,” Carini told reporters in a tearful post-fight interview.

“I am not here to judge or pass judgment,” she added. “If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide. I just did my job as a boxer. I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometer.”

On Wednesday, the Algerian Olympic Committee publicly defended Khelif, issuing a statement that denounced the “lies” and “unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete, Imane Khelif, with baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets.”