{"id":227680,"date":"2025-06-30T22:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T22:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/227680\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T22:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T22:11:11","slug":"defiant-imane-khelif-breaks-silence-after-new-plans-for-rules-to-protect-female-olympians-emerge-amid-gold-medallists-leaked-medical-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/227680\/","title":{"rendered":"Defiant Imane Khelif breaks silence after new plans for rules to &#8216;protect female Olympians&#8217; emerge amid gold medallist&#8217;s leaked medical report"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"mol-bullets-with-font\">\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Imane Khelif won Olympic gold in Paris but faced calls to return her medal<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>The IOC announced new gender rules designed to &#8216;protect&#8217; women&#8217;s sport<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Algerian boxer Khelif has broken he silence by sharing a defiant message<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"author-section byline-plain\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/profile-2941\/robert-summerscales.html\" class=\"author\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ROBERT SUMMERSCALES<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-section\"> Published:  13:42 EDT, 30 June 2025   |  Updated:  16:38 EDT, 30 June 2025   <\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has broken her silence in the wake of new measures announced to &#8216;protect the female category&#8217; in sport \u2013 as controversy continues to swirl around her Paris gold medal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Khelif, 26, became a national hero in Algerian last summer after claiming gold in the women&#8217;s 66kg division at the 2024 <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/olympics\/index.html\" id=\"mol-d9ab2da0-55d3-11f0-8938-5d16f545b189\" rel=\"noopener\">Olympics<\/a>. But her triumph was marred by the emergence of past medical disputes, including claims she had been barred from the 2023 World Championships after reportedly failing gender eligibility tests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Khelif is not <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/transgender-issues\/index.html\" id=\"mol-d99cfcd0-55d3-11f0-8938-5d16f545b189\" rel=\"noopener\">transgender<\/a> and was assigned female at birth, but her eligibility has been questioned due to reported hormone levels that allegedly exceeded thresholds set by boxing authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Calls for Khelif to be stripped of her medal intensified in recent weeks, with the president of the International Boxing Association demanding she hand it back.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">However, new International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry has insisted there will be no retrospective action on Khelif&#8217;s result, confirming she will be allowed to keep her Olympic title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Khelif had maintained a public silence throughout the furore \u2013 until now. Posting on Instagram, the boxer shared a defiant message alongside a selfie, writing: &#8216;Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-f3153784c891ebb5\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99866345-14861763-image-m-27_1751304788672.jpg\" height=\"888\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif posted a selfie to Instagram on Monday alongside the words: 'Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts'\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif posted a selfie to Instagram on Monday alongside the words: &#8216;Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-ba53f44a1fe1c568\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99866229-14861763-image-a-28_1751304851487.jpg\" height=\"482\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Khelif won a gold medal in the women's 66kg division at the Olympics in Paris last summer\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Khelif won a gold medal in the women&#8217;s 66kg division at the Olympics in Paris last summer<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-28c4a5916bf07da6\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/99866233-14861763-image-a-29_1751304900090.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Her win was marred by questions about her gender eligibility but new International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry has confirmed\u00a0Khelif's victory will continue to stand\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Her win was marred by questions about her gender eligibility but new International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry has confirmed\u00a0Khelif&#8217;s victory will continue to stand<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Khelif also included lyrics from Sia&#8217;s song I&#8217;m Still Here, which speaks of resilience and survival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Her post came just days after Coventry, in her first major address as IOC president, announced the formation of a working group tasked with safeguarding women&#8217;s sport while confirming a ban on transgender athletes and those with differences of sexual development from competing in female categories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;There was overwhelming support that we should protect the female category,&#8217; Coventry said in a livestreamed meeting. &#8216;We understand that there will be differences depending on the sports. But it was fully agreed that, as the IOC, we should place emphasis on protection of the female category.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Coventry added that the IOC would not revisit past results, saying: &#8216;We are not going to be doing anything retrospectively. We are going to be looking forward.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">However, Khelif&#8217;s future in the ring remains uncertain. World Boxing has recently introduced mandatory testing to confirm athletes&#8217; eligibility for women&#8217;s competitions, a move that could prevent Khelif from defending her Olympic title unless she complies with the new requirements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">For now, Khelif appears determined to keep fighting, sharing a message of persistence with her followers as the debate over fairness in women&#8217;s sport continues to escalate in the lead-up to the next Olympic cycle.<\/p>\n<p>                    Share or comment on this article:<br \/>\n                        Defiant Imane Khelif breaks silence after new plans for rules to &#8216;protect female Olympians&#8217; emerge amid gold medallist&#8217;s leaked medical report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imane Khelif won Olympic gold in Paris but faced calls to return her medal The IOC announced new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,92,63536,7126,27693,93,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-227680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-imane-khelif","11":"tag-olympics","12":"tag-sia","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114774611477557392","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}