Italian boxer Angela Carini has made a stunning backflip after abandoning her Olympic fight against Imane Khelif, declaring she wants to apologise to the Algerian fighter.
Khelif, who failed a gender eligibility test last year, won her opening bout at the Paris Olympics in just 46 seconds on Thursday against a distraught Carini.
Khelif advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s 66kg category after unloading two strong punches on Angela Carini, who shrugged off attempts by the Algerian to shake her hand and collapsed to her knees in floods of tears.
An Italian coach said Carini had suffered a badly hurt nose and the official decision was listed as an abandonment.
Carini was emotional after the fight, telling reporters she had “never been hit so hard” in her life, although now in an interview with an Italian newspaper she said the controversy that followed made her “sad”.
“I’m sorry for my opponent, too. If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision,” Carini told Gazzetta dello Sport.
“It wasn’t something I intended to do,” Carini added, referencing the fact she did not shake hands with Khelif.
“Actually, I want to apologise to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke.”
Carini said if she met Khelif again, she would “embrace her”.
Khelif is one of two athletes who have been cleared to compete in the women’s boxing in Paris, despite having been disqualified from last year’s Women’s World Championships for failing to meet eligibility criteria.
Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who fights on Friday at 57kg, were disqualified from the world championships last year but deemed eligible to box in the women’s competition in Paris.
The IOC website for accredited media in Paris said that the 25-year-old Khelif was disqualified after “elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria”.
Both boxed in the women’s event at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
Khelif, who came fifth in Tokyo, was given a huge roar when she came into the North Paris Arena, where there were numerous Algeria fans with the country’s flag.
Before and during the very brief bout they chanted her name, but the action itself was over in a flash.
Earlier Thursday, Algeria’s Olympic Committee (COA) condemned what it called “malicious and unethical attacks directed against our distinguished athlete, Imane Khelif, by certain foreign media”.
The COA hit out at “lies” that were “completely unfair”.
“We are all with you, Imane,” it added.
“The whole nation supports you.” Khelif and Lin were disqualified from the 2023 world championships in New Delhi, which was run by the International Boxing Association (IBA).
Lin was stripped of her bronze medal after undergoing “biochemical” tests mandated by the IBA.
However, the International Olympic Committee is running the boxing in the French capital because of governance, financial and ethical issues at the IBA.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams told reporters this week: “Everyone competing in the women’s category… is complying with competition eligibility rules.
“They are women in their passports and it’s stated in there that they are female.”
Source Agencies
