Algeria boxer Imane Khelif wins first Olympic fight when opponent Angela Carini quits

VILLEPINTE, France — Imane Khelif and Angela Carini exchanged a few brisk punches in their 46 seconds of competition in the Paris ring. They were enough to persuade Carini that her Olympic debut was finished.

The Italy boxer abruptly walked away from her Algerian opponent and went to her corner Thursday, abandoning her bout — an extremely rare occurrence in Olympic boxing.

Carini didn’t shake Khelif’s hand after the referee formally raised it, but she cried in the ring after sinking to her knees. Minutes afterward, a still-tearful Carini said she quit because of the pain from those opening punches.

“I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough,’ because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match,” Carini said.

Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test, and her presence at the Paris Olympics has become a divisive issue.

Carini, who had a spot of blood on her trunks, said she wasn't making a political statement and was not refusing to fight Khelif. Carini further said she is not qualified to decide whether Khelif should be allowed to compete.

“I just did my job as a boxer," Carini said. "I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometer.”

Carini later received a visit from Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who consoled the boxer in a photo posted on Meloni's Instagram page.

“I know you won’t give up, Angela,” Meloni wrote, “and I know one day you will win what you deserve with effort and sweat. In a competition that is finally equal.”

Khelif is an accomplished amateur who won a silver medal at the International Boxing Association's 2022 world championships. The IBA — which has been banned from the Olympics since 2019 after years of disputes with the IOC — disqualified her from last year's championships shortly before her gold-medal match because of what it claimed were elevated levels of testosterone.

The 25-year-old entered the ring at the North Paris Arena to a chorus of cheers, but the crowd was confused by the bout's sudden end. Italy coach Emanuele Renzini said he discussed the matchup with Carini and offered to allow her to back out earlier, but the boxer had been “very determined” to fight until the opening minute.

“I am heartbroken because I am a fighter,” Carini said. “My father taught me to be a warrior. I have always stepped into the ring with honor and I have always (served) my country with loyalty. And this time I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t fight anymore, and so I ended the match.”

Khelif could clinch an Olympic medal with a victory in her quarterfinal bout on Saturday against Anna Luca Hamori, Hungary's first Olympic women's boxer.

Hamori expressed no concern about fighting Khelif.

“I'm not scared,” said Hamori, who trounced Marissa Williamson Pohlman of Australia. “I don't care about the press story and social media. If she or he is a man, it will be a bigger victory for me if I win."

Khelif's passport says she is female.

Hamori and Khelif have never sparred, but they have competed in the same tournament before. Hamori repeatedly said she isn't paying attention to the controversy because it's only a hindrance to her quest for gold.

“I’m trying to not use my phone before the fight,” Hamori said. “I don’t want to care about the comments or the story or the news. I just want to stay focused on myself. I did it before my last two fights, so I think this is the key, and we will see.”

And Hamori could only shrug at Carini's decision to quit.

“It was her choice,” Hamori said. “I don’t understand, because I thought every boxer’s mind is the same like mine, to never give up. But it was her choice. We don’t know what was the reason. It’s her life, but I know I want to do this in my own life.”

After years of competition in amateur tournaments around the world, Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan suddenly have received massive scrutiny for their presence in Paris. Lin won IBA world championships in 2018 and 2022, but the governing body stripped her of a bronze medal last year because it claimed she failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.

Lin begins her Paris run Friday. She fights Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan in her opening bout after receiving a first-round bye as the No. 1 seed in the 57-kilogram category, although Olympic seeding is frequently not indicative of the top medal contenders in a division.

The Algerian Olympic Committee issued a statement Wednesday condemning what it termed “lies” and “unethical targeting and maligning of our esteemed athlete, Imane Khelif, with baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets.”

Meloni, who was visiting Italy athletes in the Olympic Village on Thursday, voiced criticism that Carini had to box Khelif, saying she had since 2021 opposed allowing athletes with “genetically male” characteristics to compete against women.

“We have to pay attention, in an attempt to not discriminate, that we’re actually discriminating” against women’s rights, Meloni said.

Khelif and Lin are two-time Olympians who fought in the Tokyo Games. Lin has been an elite-level amateur boxer for a decade and Khelif for six years.

The IOC repeatedly defended the boxers' right to compete this week. Olympic boxing reached gender parity for the first time this year, with 124 men and 124 women competing in Paris.

The IOC said it made its eligibility decisions on boxers based on the gender-related rules that applied at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Several sports have updated their gender rules over the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. The track body also last year tightened rules on athletes with differences in sex development.

The IOC is in charge of boxing in Paris because it has revoked the Olympic status of the IBA following years of governance problems, a lack of financial transparency and many perceived instances of corruption in judging and refereeing.

The IBA is controlled by president Umar Kremlev, who is Russian. He brought in Russian state-owned Gazprom as its primary sponsor and moved much of the IBA’s operations to Russia.

The IBA has since lost more than three dozen members who have formed a new group called World Boxing, which hopes to be recognized by the IOC as the sport’s governing body ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

The IBA has aggressively seized on the two boxers’ presence in Paris to criticize the IOC. After the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the IOC’s ban earlier this year, the IBA appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal in a last-gasp attempt to beat the IOC.

The banned body issued a statement Wednesday in which it claimed both boxers did not have a “testosterone examination” last year but were “subject to a separate and recognized test” for their disqualification. The IBA said the test’s “specifics remain confidential,” refusing to explain it.

The IBA disregarded IOC recommendations and allowed Russian fighters to compete at the 2023 world championships under the Russian flag. The governing body then disqualified Khelif only after Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva during the tournament.

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Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.