‘I want to inspire’: Algeria’s woman boxer fighting prejudices

ALGIERS — Born in a poor village some 300 kilometres from Algiers, boxer Imane Khelif had to overcome obstacles in a conservative country where women are considered unfit for the sport.

With braided hair and a powerful 1.79 metre physique, the 25-year-old is the object of a Paris Olympic Games gender controversy.

With smiles and a soft voice, Imane told her story on television channel Canal Algerie one month before the start of the games.

“Our village was around 10 kilometres from the centre [of Tiaret, 280 kilometres southwest of Algiers]. I moved from the village to the city. From the city to the capital. From the capital to abroad,” she said.

From a family of limited means, she spoke of the difficulty of her life in “a village of conservative people” in Tiaret’s semi-desert surroundings.

“I came from a conservative family. Boxing is not a widely-practised sport by women, especially in Algeria. It was difficult.”

Already a strong athlete, she played football with the boys in her village of Biban Mesbah — but beating boys in matches brought on fights where she fought back with punches.

These fights lead her to boxing.

In an interview with UNICEF, she said she used to sell scrap metal and her mother sold homemade couscous to pay for bus tickets to Tiaret.

Imane’s father at first did not approve of her decision to pursue boxing, but he eventually became one of her biggest fans.

The 49-year-old unemployed welder told AFP that his daughter is “an example of the Algerian woman, a heroine of Algeria”.

‘How society looked at me’ 

He hailed “her strong will to work and to train”, in an interview with AFP on Friday.

In 2022, Imane told the Algerian news agency APS that she had considered giving up boxing “because my family did not accept the idea, and because of how society looked at me, considering that I was doing something wrong”.

But “all these barriers made me even stronger and were an extra motivation to achieve my dreams.”

She also expressed her determination in an interview on the UNICEF website, where she said her “dream is to win a gold medal”.

“If I win, mothers and fathers will be able to see how far their children can go,” she said. “I want to inspire girls and children in Algeria.”

Imane’s international career took off with her participation in the lightweight category in the 2020 summer Olympic Games in Tokyo — postponed to 2021 — where she won fifth place after losing in the quarter finals to Ireland’s Kellie Harlington.

“Everything changed for the better, especially as my country’s flag flew and its hymn played in many countries throughout the world,” she explained.

In 2023, she made it to the semifinals of the women’s amateur boxing world championships in New Delhi, India.

But then she was disqualified following unspecified gender eligibility testing by the International Boxing Association, which is not recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

After her match against Italian opponent Angela Carini this week in the Paris Games — whom she beat in less than a minute — Imane was targeted by online harassment and racism, where far-right publications insinuated that she was “a man fighting women”.

Her father has dismissed aspersions about her gender, saying she is “a strong and courageous girl”.

And the IOC has supported her participation, amid the furore over Khelif and another woman boxer also disqualified from last year’s world championships.

“All of the competitors respect the eligibility rules for the competitions,” said Mark Adams, IOC spokesman, adding that it had “established that these are women”.

Imane’s coach, Mohamed Chaoua, said the “controversies give her the strength to move forward”.