Italian boxer Angela Carini may receive up to $50,000 from the International Boxing Association (IBA) following her match with Algeria’s Imane Khelif at the Paris Olympic Games.
On Thursday, controversy unfolded surrounding the gender eligibility of Khelif, who defeated Carini in 46 seconds. The match sparked conversations regarding Khelif’s biological gender and whether she should be allowed to compete with women. In fact, the IBA disqualified Khelif and Taiwan boxer Lin Yu-Ting from the 2023 World Championship due to the two women failing their gender eligibility tests. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has no affiliation with the IBA and isn’t recognized during the Olympic games.
“I do not understand why they killed women’s boxing,” IBA President Umar Kremlev said. “Only eligible athletes should compete in the ring for the sake of safety. I could not look at her tears.”
Shortly after the controversy made headlines, the IOC released a statement stating that Khelif and Yu-Ting met the criteria to compete in the games and claimed that the boxers were “arbitrarily” disqualified from the 2023 championship.
“I will not confuse the two issues (transgenders and IBA’s tests on the two boxers),” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “We are not talking about the transgender issue here. This is about a woman taking part in the women’s category. This is not a transgender case. I have said it many times now. And I would like to ask, really, everyone, to respect these women, to respect them as women, as human beings. And not the confusion some apparently want to create around them.”
As a result, the IOC said that Carini will be awarded for her match against Khelif as an Olympic medalist. According to the IOC, $50,000 goes to the gold medalists and $25,000 to silver medalists, meaning Carini could leave the event with some big bucks. Additionally, Carini’s coaches and her country’s federations will also receive $25,000 a piece, totaling $100,000.
Nevertheless, Carini has since apologized for causing such an uproar and says it was not “intentional.”
