An Olympic boxing match on Thursday between Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Italy’s Angela Carini sparked controversy across the sports world.
The Algerian’s participation in the Paris contest drew protests because Khelif had failed a gender eligibility test and was revealed to have male chromosomes during the 2023 World Championships.
Carini quit the fight just 46 seconds into her amateur debut, but boxing legend Jackie Kallen told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that the bout should have never taken place.
“I just feel like that because it’s been banned everywhere else in contact sports. I’m just disappointed anyone on the Olympic Committee allowed this to happen as the whole world was watching,” Kallen said. “It’s just a black mark on the sport of boxing. We have enough problems with people looking at the sport as brutal or finding other things to complain about. But this really doesn’t help us at all.”
Kallen is definitely a rarity in the male-dominated sport. She endured the female manager trials and tribulations managing some of the sport’s top stars including James Toney and Bronco McKart to world titles.
Her life inspired the 2004 Meg Ryan-led movie “Against the Ropes.” In 2023, she became the first female manager to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Kallen has put in her time as both a fighter and trainer, she knows the true disparity between male hand to hand warriors and female combat sport athletes.
“Someone could get badly hurt,” she told one news outlet. “For this young girl to get hit and watch her dreams go down the drain, it’s just wrong.”
Carini said Thursday that one of Khelif’s punches “hurt too much,” which is what caused her to withdraw.
In 2023, IBA President Umar Kremlev stated that a test had also been carried out at the time on Khelif and showed he has “XY chromosomes.” On Wednesday, the IBA stated Khelif “did not meet the eligibility criteria to compete in women’s competition” and she failed to “meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition” and was found to have “competitive advantages over females.”
However, Khelif was cleared to fight by the International Olympic Committee.
“Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said. “They are women in their passports, and it’s stated that this is the case, that they are female.”
According to Kallen, if it was up to her she would disqualify Khelif at the Olympics and let Carini move on.
Khelif fights again Saturday.
