Italian boxer Angela Carini decided to withdraw in tears just 46 seconds after the start of a match that has sparked huge controversy at the Olympics.
Imane Khelif of Algeria won her opening Olympic boxing match on Thursday when opponent Angela Carini of Italy quit after just 46 seconds.
Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test, and her presence at the Paris 2024 Olympics has since become issue.
Carini and Khelif exchanged only a few punches before Carini walked away and abandoned the match — which is an extremely unusual occurrence in Olympic boxing.
Carini’s headgear apparently became dislodged at least once before she quit. Carini didn’t shake Khelif’s hand after the decision was announced but cried in the ring on her knees.
She could be seen in the ring saying “Non è giusto” — “It’s not fair” in Italian. “I am not here to pass judgement.”
Afterwards, a still-tearful Carini said she quit because of intense pain in her nose after the opening punches. Carini, who had a spot of blood on her trunks, said she wasn’t making a political statement and was not refusing to fight Khelif.
“I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough’, because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match,” Carini said.
Carini further said she was not qualified to decide whether Khelif should be allowed to compete, but she had no problem fighting her.
“I am not here to judge or pass judgment,” Carini said. “If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide. I just did my job as a boxer. I got into the ring and fought. I did it with my head held high and with a broken heart for not having finished the last kilometre.”
Khelif is an accomplished amateur who won a silver medal at the International Boxing Association’s 2022 World Championships. The same governing body disqualified her from last year’s championships shortly before her gold-medal match because of what it claimed were elevated levels of testosterone.
