Childhood photos of Algerian boxer in middle of Olympics gender role emerge as Khelif's father, Omar says: "My child is a girl"

Imane Khelif of Algeria's gender has come up in discussion after an incident at the Olympic Games.

Imane Khelif of Algeria delivered a single strike that caused Angela Carini, her Italian opponent, to concede, saying she had "never been hit so hard" in her life.

Outrage ensued when Khelif was accused of being "biologically male" by Carini supporters.
Carini's response and Khelif's disqualification from the women's World Championships last year have revived the debate over who is eligible to participate in women's sports.
Imane Khelif and another fighter, Lin Yu-ting, were declared to not have met the "required eligibility criteria" for the female division by the organizers, the International Boxing Association (IBA), who later claimed the two had been proven to have XY chromosomes.

The International Olympic Committee has accused the IBA of disqualifying the pair based on a "arbitrary decision" with "no due process," suggesting no scientific tests were carried out as part of the decision. However, childhood photos of Khelif, from Conservative Algeria, shows she grew up as a girl. Photos of her and her family show her as a young girl in female clothes, with her supporters saying she has always been a girl who just happens to have elevated testosterone and should not be made to suffer for it. Khelif, who does not identify as either transgender or intersex, is not believed to have commented directly on the qualification row but alluded to it last month when she described 2023 as a difficult year.

The broadcaster Canal Algérie asked her how she handled missing the World Championships, and she replied, "It was a tough blow for me but I came back stronger to show my strength and determination and show the whole world the brave woman who is Imane Khelif."

The 25-year-old described her narrative as "impressive" as she talked about the struggles she had to overcome in order to escape her childhood poverty and succeed as a boxer.

But taking up the sport of boxing was a path paved with cultural and financial obstacles which Imane struggled to overcome.

"It was truly difficult, I come from a conservative region and family. Boxing was a sport dedicated only to men," she told Canal Algérie.

"The toughest thing for me was travelling between my village and the town where I did my training. Those are obstacles I encountered at the start."

Each week she had to take a bus from her village to the training centre 10 kilometres away, but her family could not afford the fare.

"I ended up selling bread in the street, I picked up crockery and other objects to earn money and be able to travel because I came from a very poor family," she added.

Imane was raised in a small rural community in Tiaret, Algeria, a nation with little sporting options for females.

Prior to discovering a flair for scrapping while evading and defending herself from boys who intimidated her and picked fights with her, she was an enthusiastic and gifted football player till the age of sixteen.

She also began collecting scrap metal to sell while her mother sold couscous and set aside the earnings for the travel costs.

"I had to do that kind of thing in order to keep doing this sport and now I feel like I’m living a dream."

Imane went on to tell Canal Algérie: "I never imagined that one day I’d become a boxer and that I’d become world champion.

"I always liked football and I played it in my little village, my father always preferred football to boxing.

"But I was very good at sport at my school and my teacher encouraged me to switch to boxing, given I had good physical qualities, and he was right.

"My trainer Mohamed Chaouel had called me to the boxing studio and the moment I set foot in the ring, I instantly fell in love with this beautiful discipline."

Imane is scheduled to continue her Olympian campaign in Paris with a fight on Saturday, August 3.

It’s not clear who she’ll face but a win would guarantee her a bronze medal.

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