From a small Algerian village, home of the boxer Imane Khelif at the centre of a gender eligibility row in the Paris Olympics, her father hailed the athlete as a “heroine”.
Omar Khelif told AFP that he had raised his daughter “to be brave”, as he proudly showed off a picture of her aged seven or eight years old, wearing her hair in plaits.
“Since she was little her passion has always been sport,” the 49-year-old said, sitting with two of his younger children.
Competing in the 66kg category of the women’s boxing competition in the Paris Games, his daughter Imane has found herself in the middle of a heated global row after it emerged that she had previously failed unspecified gender eligibility tests.
The 25-year-old caused her Italian rival Angela Carini on Thursday to retire hurt during a fight at the Paris Olympics after just 46 seconds — sparking a social media furore, with some including former US president Donald Trump framing the issue as men fighting against women.
There is no suggestion that Khelif, who has fought on the women’s circuit for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics, identifies as anything other than a woman.
Her father showed identity documents and her birth certificate to AFP, speaking from a rural village some 10 kilometres (six miles) from Tiaret — a town nearly 300 kilometres southwest of the capital Algiers, which has been hit in recent months by water shortages.
“My child is a girl,” Omar Khelif said. “She was raised as a girl. She is a strong girl — I raised her to work and be brave.”
‘Difficult’ sport for Algerian women
Imane’s next fight Saturday is against Hungarian boxer Anna Luca Hamori in the quarter-finals. Victory would guarantee her a medal — marking the first at the Paris Games for Algeria.
Her father insisted that Imane won the controversial bout against Carini simply because she was “stronger and the other was weak”.
Imane has a “strong will at work and in training”, he said.
In an interview this year for UNICEF — for which she is an ambassador — Imane Khelif spoke of her conservative upbringing, and said her father had initially had difficulty accepting her boxing.
He later accepted her career, she said in the interview, calling her parents her “biggest fans”.
The boxer told UNICEF she wants to encourage more girls into the sport, particularly as opportunities for girls in sport can be limited in Algeria, and help fight obesity in the country.
“Boxing was not a sport that was very popular with women, especially in Algeria,” she told Algerian television Canal Algerie ahead of the Olympics. “It was difficult.”
‘Raise the flag in Paris’
In addition to overcoming cultural challenges, she also had to travel 10 kilometres (six miles) by bus from her village to train at the boxing gym — selling scrap metal for recycling to pay for the bus fare, while her mother sold couscous.
“Imane is an example of Algerian woman,” said her father. “She is one of the heroines of Algeria. God willing, she will honour us with a gold medal and raise the national flag in Paris.
“This has been our only goal since the beginning.”
In the local sports club where Imane started out, a group of girls of various ages were warming up and skipping with ropes.
“We wish her good luck; she is truly an athlete who makes us feel proud,” said 17-year-old Zohra Chourouk, punching her arms up in support.
“She honoured the national flag. She is our role model”.
The group of young women training called out a united “good luck” to their heroine.
Coach Abdelkader Bezaiz said he wanted to send her a message from the club where she made her debut.
“I want to tell her that she shouldn’t bother with these criticisms circulating on social media networks,” the coach said.
“Their goal is clear — it’s designed to confuse her, and make her forget why she came to the Olympics.”
