Claim: “SHOCKING BOXING NEWS: Imane Khelif has been banned for life after the WBO recognized him as a man, losing all his medals and $25 million in prize money.
This Facebook post was published by Koa Smith, a professional surfer from Hawaii with around half a million followers. The post, published on March 14, has received more than 80,000 interactions.
DW Fact check: False
DW requested clarification from the World Boxing Organization (WBO).
“No she is recognized as a female,” reads a written statement from the Organization dated March 19.
“World Boxing is in the process of evaluating gender variation rules and any subsequent rule changes will be made in due course,” it added.
Not the first time she has been the target of false reports
The debate surrounding the Algerian boxer flares up again and again on social media at regular intervals.
The athlete is accused of actually being a man and wrongly competing in the women’s category. The accusations are paired with defamatory comments about the so-called “woke” Olympic Games and hatred of trans women.
Back in September and October 2024, fact checks by the Australian Associated Press (APP) and Reuters, among others, refuted identical or similar false allegations.
Retroactively disqualified
The WBO told the BBC in October 2024 that reports that Olympic champion Imane Khelif had been banned and stripped of her Paris gold medal because she had failed gender-specific fitness tests were “obviously false.”
Khelif, who was born on May 2, 1999, in Tiaret, Algeria, was excluded from the women’s boxing world championships organized by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in March 2023 after her victory against the previously unbeaten Russian Azalia Amineva. She was disqualified retroactively.
According to the IBA, a “recognized” test had determined that Khelif had an advantage over other female competitors. Details of this were described as confidential and were not published.
