The Olympics is no stranger to controversy, but this is one that should not have been

The Olympics are an exciting time when the world can take a pause and come together to celebrate athleticism at its peak. We’ve seen miraculous feats and excruciating moments alike, dreams coming true and others ending, sometimes simultaneously. But there’s one consistent thing about the Olympics that often gets swept under the rug – scandal – and this year is certainly no exception.

This year the controversy took off faster than Noah Lyles at the starting block when the opening ceremony went a little, how shall we say, sideways.

“Controversies erupted at the Paris 2024 Olympics from gender fairness debates and sexist remarks to a spying scandal and water quality concerns. Through all the scandals, the Olympics continues to fight for fairness and equality among its athletes,” Newsweek reported.

Historically, there was the infamous doping scandal surrounding Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Olympic games. In 1972 at the Munich Games Israeli athletes were brutally murdered. And last but not least, anyone remember Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding?

It makes perfect sense that the turmoils affecting the world at that given moment would logically run concurrent to and even intersect at times with the Olympics, specifically the athletes.

But let’s talk about the 46 seconds that left us all delirious. I’m talking of course about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif who landed a punch so powerful that competing Italian boxer Angela Carini called the match after less than a minute. The bout sparked outrage across the world, prompting debates on allowing transgender competition at the Olympics.

Admittedly, I jumped straight on the Carini bandwagon, but for good reason. I do not believe that the male body competing against the female body is a fair fight. Men are simply built differently. Apparently a lot of people feel that way because the media went wild. Facebook posts showed a crying Carini crouched down saying “it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair.” She even refused to shake Khelif’s hand. People were furious … until the next day. Reports started surfacing that Khelif was in fact, unquestionably, a natural-born woman. She was raised female and listed such on her birth certificate, which is the International Olympic Committee’s requirements for eligibility. She does however suffer from a rare disorder called Swyer Syndrome.

“Girls with Swyer syndrome have an XY chromosomal makeup (as boys normally do) instead of an XX chromosomal makeup (as girls normally do). Despite having the XY chromosomal makeup, girls with Swyer syndrome look female and have functional female genitalia and structures including a vagina, uterus and fallopian tubes,” according to the National Organization of Rare Disorders.

Ope. Looks like we jumped the gun a bit on that one, and that’s okay. We go off the best information that we have at the time, however, this is a great reminder that we should save our harsh criticisms until we’ve heard every side of the story. But we’re human. 

An article in Prestige Magazine reported, “The Algerian Olympic Committee has strongly defended Khelif, stating that the backlash is a malicious attack on her. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has also stood by their decision to let Khelif compete, with spokesperson Mark Adams stating, “The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport.”

“Carini has since apologized to Khelif in an interview with Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport. “I’m sorry for my opponent, too. If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision. Actually, I want to apologize to [Khelif] and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke,” the article read.

By the way, yes, Prestige Magazine isn’t the most reliable of sources but I’m choosing to go with it here.

So, it appears we got it wrong. And the mature thing to do would be to acknowledge that, apologize, and chalk it up to running with incomplete information. But of course, many people refused to do such a crazy thing and decided to stand by their opinion instead. Then it got political.

As I said earlier, I do not believe that it’s fair when individuals with a disproportionate physical advantage (men) should be allowed to compete against women in events that involve strength, agility, speed, and mobility. But this anomaly is one of those extremely rare circumstances that you don’t expect, but can happen.  

That being said, I implore you to have kindness and compassion toward both these fighters. Remember, we’ve seen dreams coming true and others ending, sometimes simultaneously, and this was one of those moments.