Italy’s Angela Carini quit after 46 seconds in the ring with biological male boxer Imane Khelif at the Paris Olympics.
Carini and Khelif fought in the women’s 66kg preliminaries round at the North Paris Arena, in Villepinte on Thursday.
During a pause in the action, Carini adjusted her head gear before Khelif landed a clean right.
Carini signaled to her corner that she was injured, and the fight was stopped.
Khelif, 25, won by technical knockout and Carini, also 25, dropped to her knees and cried.
Carini avoided attempts by Khelif to console her after the fight. Carini’s trainer said her nose was broken.
“I have a big pain in my nose and I said, ‘Stop’. It’s better to avoid keeping going. My nose started dripping (with blood) from the first hit,” said, who also cried when talking to reporters.
Khelif told reporters afterwards: “It’s always satisfying to win in such an important competition, but I remain focused on my goal of a medal.”
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Khelif is one of two male-bodied boxers at the Olympics who failed gender tests last year. Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, 28, is the other boxer.
Each boxer’s gender test came back as XY chromosome. Human females have two X chromosomes.
Both boxers were disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi last year.
“Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women,” the president of the International Boxing Association, Umar Kremlev, told Russia’s Tass news agency last year. “According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition.”
But the Olympic committee is allowing them to fight women in their weight class during the Paris Olympics.
Both boxers beat the best women in their countries to qualify for the Olympics in Paris.
Khelif and Lin have always competed as women. Neither man has claimed to be transgender or intersex.
