Algeria’s Imane Khelif (Blue) reacts after beating Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng within the girls’s 66kg semi-final boxing match throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games on the Roland-Garros Stadium, in Paris on August 6, 2024. (Picture by Mauro PIMENTEL / AFP)
The Algerian boxer embroiled in a significant gender controversy on the Paris Olympics received her semi-final on Tuesday to ensure at the very least a silver medal in entrance of a raucous Roland Garros crowd that chanted her identify.
Imane Khelif defeated Thailand’s 2023 world silver medallist Janjaem Suwannapheng in a unanimous factors choice to march into Friday’s last within the girls’s 66kg class.
“I’m like all athletes, I’m right here to realize my dream,” Khelif informed AFP afterwards.
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Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, the opposite boxer within the eye of a storm over her eligibility, is herself positive to take residence at the very least bronze at a special weight.
The 25-year-old Khelif and Lin each fought on the Tokyo Olympics three years in the past however there was no controversy on the time and neither received a medal.
Each have been disqualified from final yr’s world championships after failing gender eligibility exams, however have been cleared to compete in Paris.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif (Blue) reacts after beating Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng within the girls’s 66kg semi-final boxing match throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games on the Roland-Garros Stadium, in Paris on August 6, 2024. (Picture by MOHD RASFAN / AFP)
Khelif was given the most important roar of the night time as she entered the world at Roland Garros, normally residence to Grand Slam tennis however internet hosting Olympic boxing and a sizeable variety of Algerian followers with flags.
Cries of “Imane, Imane” rang out repeatedly earlier than and throughout the bout.
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The Thai Janjaem, who had a transparent top drawback, took a standing depend within the third spherical after feeling the total energy of the superior Algerian.
On the finish of the battle on the 15,000-seated Courtroom Philippe-Chatrier, which was near capability, the 2 fighters greeted one another warmly and shook fingers.
Khelif did a dance in the course of the ring, to extra roars of approval.
She faces Yang Liu for gold after the Chinese language boxer beat Taiwan’s Chen Nien-chin within the different semi-final on factors.
“I’m specializing in the competitors and different issues should not essential. The essential factor is that I’m within the last now,” Khelif informed BeIN Sports activities.
“I’m very happy with this new achievement. I gave all the pieces I had. We labored as a group for years and the dream has turn out to be a actuality.
“I hope to focus and be as much as the accountability within the dream last.”
The overwhelmed Thai moved to minimize the furore.
“I had heard in regards to the information relating to her, however I wasn’t following it intently,” she stated. “She is a lady, however she could be very sturdy.”
Chaotic
The gender controversy ignited when Khelif defeated Angela Carini in 46 seconds in her opening bout within the French capital, the Italian diminished to tears and abandoning the battle after struggling a badly harm nostril.
The 2023 world championships, from which Lin and Khelif have been expelled, have been run by the Worldwide Boxing Affiliation (IBA) however the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) is organising the game on the Video games due to monetary, governance and moral considerations on the IBA.
The IBA’s Kremlin-linked president Umar Kremlev claimed at a chaotic press convention on Monday that each fighters had “genetic testing that reveals that these are males”.
The IOC has leapt to the protection of Khelif and Lin, with president Thomas Bach saying they have been born and raised as girls, and have passports saying that.
The 28-year-old Lin fights within the semi-finals of the ladies’s 57kg division on Wednesday.
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