Two Olympic boxers have been stripped of medals as Imane Khelif ‘told to return her gold’ from Paris

The boxer Algerian Imane Khelif is the latest medal loser, stripped very publicly of his gold medal but, unlike other medal losers in boxing in the past, his was a particularly dramatic example.

Khelif won the women 66kg welterweight gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in an emphatic new drive over Chinese Yang Liu. What at first was a historic moment in Algerian sports has been dogged by controversy ever since.

Before the Games speculation had been swirling about the qualification of Khelif based on gender. The International boxing association (IBA) disqualified her participation in 2023 World Championships after

she protested against him failing a medical test. The decision left a bad mark on her career though the IBA did not give details of what the test consisted of.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) however held a very differing position. Before the 1992 Paris Olympics, Khelif was cleared to play where the IOC said categorically that she had passed through all

related eligibility and medical rules. The IOC also discredited the testing construction of IBA, terming them as something that was not legitimate and results of the disqualification were supposed to be discarded.

Nevertheless, the tussle between the regulating institutions increased. A letter dated December 1995 by World Boxing, a new relatively formed body after suspending the IBA of Olympic activities, was

addressed to the Algerian Boxing Association that Khelif was to be screened of his genes before being permitted to fight their matches. However, despite World Boxing issuing an apology subsequently

stating that it was wrong to identify Khelif by name in the letter, in effect, the condition puts her in a position where she will not be able to compete until additional tests are done.

Khelif has grown up and lived all her life as a girl, but as ordered by her father, and now she is the main topic of a raging controversy regarding fairness, eligibility, and the jurisdiction of different sports

organizations. President of IBA Umar Kremlev publicly requested that she should be forced to surrender the gold medal-although she is manifestly and expressly permitted to under the Olympic rules.

This has led to comparison with other medal-stripping incidences in the Olympic boxing but none resembles the peculiar background of Khelif in this case.

In 2016, Russian flyweight Misha Aloian was disqualified of his silver medal after testing positive in tuaminoheptane, a prohibited stimulant. The finding was made after the end of the competition and Aloian medal was finally stripped off in December of the same year.

Even more fateful case happened more than a century ago. In 1904 Jack Egan, an American boxer has won silver, and gold at the Olympics in St. But it turned out later that the name of this murder, Jack Egan,

was a pseudonym; his true name was Frank Floyd. This was against the regulation of the Amateur Athletic Union that did not allow athletes to use fake identities in competing. In 1905 Egan was ruled ineligible, and both medals were taken back.

Although those previous incidents were grounded on doping and identity fraud, the case of Khelif draws to the fore a more contemporary and heated fringe within the field of sports: the classification of gender and the changing regulation of its participation in the field of women competition and inclusiveness.

Debates aside, there is no doubt that Khelif is lightning in the boxing world not only in terms of her ring performance but also of the bigger issues her case raises concerning who is allowed to compete and who votes.