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VILLEPINTE, France (AP) — 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.
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.
