Former Olympic boxer and Olympic boxing trainer Rafa Lozano says that Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif was considered too dangerous for women to train with during a recent boxing retreat in Spain.
The Spanish boxer and trainer told Radio Marca that allowing Khelif to box as a female in the Paris Games was “unfair.”
“I don’t see it as fair. Everyone can think what they want, but that’s how I see it,” Lozano told the outlet.
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.
Lozano explained that Khelif was not well received at a boxing event at CAR Blume Sports Center in Madrid, Spain.
“They were doing a retreat at Blume, and we couldn’t put her with anyone. We put [Khelif] with Jennifer Fernandez, and it hurt her. Whoever we put [Khelif] with was injured,” he said.
In fact, Khelif was so dangerous to the female participants that the officials of the event stopped putting Khelif up against women and paired the Algerian with one of Spain’s top male boxers to make it “even.”
Lozano added that allowing Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting to box in the female category in Paris was not right and said, “From my point of view, I don’t see it as fair.”
Mexican boxer Brianda Tamara Cruz, who boxed against Khelif two years ago, said that she had never felt blows as powerful and damaging as those from Khelif in her 13-year boxing career.
Cruz, who fought Khelif at the Golden Belt Series Finals in Guadalajara in 2022, said she was “hurt a lot” by Khelif’s pummeling.
“When I fought [Khelif], I felt it was very out of my reach; I was hurt a lot by [the] punches; I think I had never in my 13 years as a boxer felt like this, not even in my sparring with men.” Cruz added, “Thank God, that day I came out of the ring well, and it’s good that they finally realized.”
Cruz also posted images of her battered face showing the bruises and abrasions suffered at the hands of the controversial Algerian boxer.
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