Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has been named Google’s most-searched athlete for 2024 after the gender controversy that placed the boxer at the top of the news during the 2024 Olympics in Paris this year.
Google released its “Year In Search” results this week, showing Khelif sitting atop the athlete chart. Fox News reported that the boxer’s name was searched more than that of athletes including Simone Biles, Jake Paul, and Mike Tyson.
The boxer instantly became the center of controversy for being allowed to compete as a female in the International Olympic Games in Paris this year despite being banned in 2023 by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for allegedly testing positive for male XY chromosomes.
In 2023, the IBA President Umar Kremlev explained his organization’s decision to disqualify Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting and Algeria’s Imane Khelif from competing in the IBA’s 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships, according to Russia’s Tass News Agency. “Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women. According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition,” Kremlev said.
But after Khelif’s first Olympic bout against Italian boxer Angela Carini, the world rose up in protest that Khelif was allowed to fight as a woman in Paris.
Indeed, after Carini lost her Olympic fight in a mere 46 seconds, she told the press that she had never been hit so hard in her entire boxing career.
It was later revealed by Olympic boxing trainer Rafa Lozano that Khelif had been barred from boxing with women in training because they considered the Algerian to be far too dangerous for women to face in the ring.
After the Olympics, another report emerged that Khelif was more male than female and had the internal makeup of a man, not a woman. The report added that Khelif has internal testes, a “micropenis” and XY chromosomes.
Khelif’s biological status, reportedly assembled by the Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital in Paris, France, and the Mohamed Lamine Debaghine hospital in Algiers, Algeria, revealed that the IBA may have been correct in its ruling that Khelif is a male and should be banned from women’s boxing.
The report claims that Khelif suffers from a 5-alpha reductase deficiency, a sexual organ disorder that is only found in males.
A baby born with this disorder appears to have genitalia that can be mistaken for a vaginal pouch. Still, when puberty comes, the child begins to show male qualities like hair growth, growth in muscle mass, an absence of any breast tissue, and, later, a lack of menstrual activity.
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