Boxing

Imane Khelif Fights Back On Controversial Gender Mandate Announcement

Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif is not submitting to mandatory gender testing mandates.
Grant Young|
IMAGO / Newscom World

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif became one of the most famous figures in boxing in the midst of winning an Olympic gold medal at the Paris 2024 games. However, Khelif's fame and success was owed to a massive controversy that turned her into a polarizing figure.

While Khelif was making her run to the gold medal, questions regarding her eligibility to compete against other women became apparent because of her abnormally high testosterone levels.

Once the mainstream sports world found out that Khelif was banned from competing at the 2023 World Championships (which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) disregarded for the Paris Games) because of this, there was outrage about her participation in Paris.

World Boxing Mandates Controversial Gender Testing 

Imane Khelif (ALG) celebrates her gold medal in a women’s 66kg victory ceremony on August 9, 2024
Andrew P. Scott-Imagn Images

As a response to this outcry about Khelif's eligibility, World Boxing announced that they had decided to adopt mandatory sex tests, starting in May 2025. They said the new policies are to make sure that all boxers competing in their events are as safe as possible.

"These new eligibility rules were developed with the express purpose of safeguarding athletes in combat sports, particularly given the physical risks associated with Olympic-style boxing," World Boxing's letter (which was sent to the Algerian Boxing Federation) wrote.

The sentiment is that if Khelif were to undergo this testing, she would be ruled ineligible to compete against women, thus being unable to participate in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.

Imane Khelif Challenges World Boxing Test Mandate

However, it's now clear that Khelif plans to fight back against this testing mandate. Per a September 2 report from CBS News, Khelif filed an appeal of this ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) back on August 5.

In addition to this appeal of the now mandatory gender testing, Khelif's team requested that she be allowed to compete from September 4-14 (which is when the 2025 World Boxing Championships take place) without submitting a test.

However, the CAS announced on Monday that it dismissed the request to suspend the World Boxing testing mandate until the case goes to court.

It seems that a lot still needs to be sorted out regarding Khelif's future in boxing. What's for sure is that she has no intention of retiring any time soon, which she made clear in an August 20 Facebook post that read, "I have never announced my retirement from boxing. I remain committed to my sporting career, training regularly and maintaining my physical fitness between Algeria and Qatar in preparation for upcoming events. The publication of such rumours is intended solely to disrupt and damage my sporting and professional career."

There's surely more still to come from this story.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.