Boxer Imane Khelif Files Complaint After Online Abuse About Gender at 2024 Olympics

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has filed a formal complaint after she was the target of online abuse and harassment throughout the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Khelif took down China's Yang Liu in the final Friday to win a gold medal. Her attorney, Nabil Boudi, issued a statement Saturday saying she was pursuing legal action with her Summer Games now concluded.

"Having just won a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, boxer Imane Khelif has decided to lead a new fight: that of justice, dignity and honor," Boudi said (via ESPN's Connor O'Halloran).

"Ms. Khelif contacted the firm, which filed a complaint yesterday for acts of aggravated cyber harassment with the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor's office."

The prosecutor's office in Paris has yet to receive the complaint, per O'Halloran, a step that could arrive in the coming days.

The controversy began in large part after Italy's Angela Carini walked away in the middle of her bout with Khelif in the round of 16 after just 46 seconds.

Some observers highlighted the fact Khelif had been disqualified from the 2023 world championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA) because she failed to meet the eligibility requirements. That prompted unfounded accusations about her gender and allegations she had an unfair physical advantage in the ring.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach affirmed both Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, who had also been disqualified by the IBA, were eligible to compete in Paris under the IOC's guidelines.

"Let's be very clear, we are talking about women's boxing," Bach told reporters.

"We have two boxers who are born as a woman, who have been raised as a woman, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as a woman.

"This is the clear definition of a woman. There was never any doubt about them being a woman."

Bach described the gender-related outcry against Khelif as "hate speech."

Beyond the fact the IOC provided the 25-year-old with the green light to enter the boxing tournament, the Associated Press' Greg Beacham laid out the existing questions regarding the IBA's original decision and the organization as a whole.

"The non-boxing world largely doesn't know, however, about the IBA's decades of troubled governance and longstanding accusations of a thorough lack of normal transparency in nearly every aspect of its dealings, particularly in recent years," Beacham wrote.

In June 2023, the IOC voted 69-1 in favor of no longer recognizing the IBA as an official governing body for boxing.