We will witness legalised murder in the ring if this insane wokery is allowed to continue, writes boxing legend JEFF POWELL
Yesterday’s fight between Italy’s Angela Carini and Algerian Imane Khelif is a red flag as huge as that Chinese banner unfurled the other day at the gymnastics arena.
It’s a warning as to what will inevitably happen should this insane piece of wokery be allowed to continue.
If male-bodied boxers continue to take on women in the ring, I predict that we will witness legalised murder in the name of sport.
In a shocking dereliction of female safety, the International Olympic Committee has decided to allow this crazy behaviour. Carini took her own defensive measures yesterday – and may have saved her own life.
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Algeria’s Imane Khelif (left) won her women’s welterweight bout when Angela Carini (right) quit
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Carini was hit twice in the opening round before abandoning the contest after 46 seconds
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The Italian boxer dropped to her knees after quitting and was seen crying in the ring
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Khelif’s participation in the event has been a source of controversy having been disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships last year
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Carini admitted before the fight that ‘she could ‘only adapt to the rules of the Olympics’
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Taiwan’s Lin Yu Ting has been cleared to compete, despite also being disqualified from last year’s World Championships
Just two punches and 46 seconds into her fight against Khelif, she begged her corner to pull her out and then collapsed in tears.
What is clear is that Khelif has a heavily muscled male-type body.
The Algerian’s first blow parted Carini from her chinstrap. The second thump – which she described as more devastating than any she had experienced in her decorated career – convinced her enough was enough.
‘Testosterone’ is the key word in this scandal, which also features a boxer called Lin Yu Ting from Taiwan.
Both fighters have been approved to take part in the Paris Olympics even though they were disqualified from last year’s World Boxing Championships after the IOC said they had failed tests – for having too much of the male hormone.
True, neither Khelif nor Lin is thought to be transgender. It is understood they are more likely ‘intersex’, although the facts are hard to come by.
Whatever the case, their national Olympic associations state that they are women.
But what about their heavily muscled physiques, or the distinct possibility that, at the most basic level, these two boxers have the XY chromosomes of biological males?
In the wake of the Charlotte Dujardin case, the IOC is concerned about slashing dressage horses with a whip. It doesn’t want sewage in the Seine to harm triathletes. But it appears dangerously relaxed about women boxers risking life and limb.
Did no one in the delegates’ freebie bubble put down their champagne glass long enough to glance at clips showing Khelif crunching previous girls – and realise that of all the sporting disciplines, boxing is the most perilous of all for women battling against opponents with male physiques?
After all, men sometimes do, sadly, kill each other in the prize ring.
Is the IOC blind as well as stupid?
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Charlotte Dujardin was banned from the Olympics for whipping a horse 24 times around the legs
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She has won three Olympic gold medals but will not be adding to her tally in Paris
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Both men’s and women’s triathlon races took place amid water quality concerns in the River Seine
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Paris 2024 and World Triathlon stressed the water quality met their strict tests to allow racing
Sharron Davies, in high dudgeon even though she works for the snowflake BBC, has condemned permitting biological males to compete against females in swimming or any other sport as a disgrace. As has Martina Navratilova.
Northern Ireland boxing legend Barry McGuigan has given the IOC a two-fisted lambasting.
Death now stalks the squared ring, and all at a time when the Olympic authorities are looking for excuses to remove boxing – one of the original sports in the Ancient Games – from the next contest in Los Angeles 2028. This would be a dire betrayal of the Olympic ethos.
Yet there is a simple solution.
I am among those who would wholeheartedly support a separate category for transgender sportsmen and women and those of indeterminate identity – just as there are different weight divisions in boxing.
And it’s not just boxing I’m talking about: we need a separate category for every sport.
No one should be denied the eternal right of taking part. But not at the risk of someone else’s life.
