Since her first fight at the Olympics in Paris, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has been caught in a storm of controversy. Khelif defeated her Italian rival Angela Carini in 46 seconds, who then refused to shake her hand (and later apologized) because of a testosterone test she failed last year that resulted in her disqualification from the World Championship. 3 View gallery Imane Khelif ( Photo: Richard Pelham/Getty Images ) Social media users were busy discussing the boxer's right to participate in the women's competition following her gender test fail, sparking transgender tropes, although Khelif is not transgender.
Algeria claims that the transgender storm is a "Zionist conspiracy." Yassine Arab, the director of the Algerian Olympic and Sports Committees, made claims about the forces he says targeted Khelif. "The Zionist lobby, they want to break the mind of Imane.
But now Imane is very strong. They don’t want a Muslim girl or Arabic girl to go higher in the level of the rank of female boxing. We are all here for Imane.
You can see all the support of everybody from the world. All the international press associations, they support Imane," he said. 3 View gallery Imane Khelif has been accused of being transgender ( Photo: John Locher/AP ) The allegation that Khelif is transgender became so widely spread that even former President Donald Trump addressed the issue, vowing to "keep men out of women's sports.
" Arab responded that Trump has enough problems of his own and he should.