AP Takes Heat After Olympic Boxer Who Failed Gender Tests Won Third Place for 'Female Athlete of the Year'

The Associated Press has come under fire for handing out its third-place slot for female athlete of the year to Imane Khelif, the controversial Olympic boxer who failed gender tests.

The AP announced its award rankings, noting that its Female Athlete of the Year was WNBA star rookie Caitlin Clark. The next two runners-up were U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles in second place and Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, who took third place with four votes.

Khelif, of course, stirred controversy for failing gender tests and being disqualified from the women’s category in boxing competitions throughout 2023 but was nonetheless allowed to box as a woman in the Paris Olympics this year. Unsurprisingly, the Algerian destroyed every woman faced in the ring and won the gold medal in boxing in August.

“The IBA disqualified Khelif, fighting in the 66-kilogram division, and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting, fighting in the 57-kilogram division, from fighting in its women’s tournaments in March 2023 on the grounds that they failed unspecified tests to confirm that they fit the governing body’s definition of a woman,” Breitbart’s Frances Martel reports. “IBA President Umar Kremlev told the Russian news agency Tass at the time that Lin and Khelif ‘have XY chromosomes,’ the genetic makeup of a human male.

“The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed Lin and Khelif to compete because it does not use the IBA testing standards, requiring athletes only to present their passports and qualifying them to compete as men or women, depending on how their countries classify them.”

But with the revelation that the boxer, who was determined to have male XY chromosomes, landed in third place in AP’s female athlete of the year voting, many took to social media to blast the wire service for its inclusion of Khelif.

One of the most notable detractors of AP’s choice is tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who jumped to her X account to proclaim “Wtaf???”

But Navratilova was far from the only person to express outrage over the award standings.

Women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines also blasted the AP’s move, calling it “absurd” and alleging that the AP “knows” Khelif “is a man.”

Many other social media users were equally sickened by the AP’s actions:

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston