Boxing champion to return to ring

Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif is scheduled to return to the ring next month in Paris, two years after she clinched the gold medal in the French capital amid international scrutiny.

Khelif was scheduled to fight in April, but her bout was postponed after she injured her left shoulder while training.

Promoters said this week that her Dec. 15 professional fight at the Maison de la Mutualite in Paris against fighter Clarida Sarabia.

Algeria’s Imane Khelif, left, fights China’s Yang Liu in their women’s 66kg final at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Photo: AP

“I’ve waited, I’ve doubted, but deep inside, the fire never dies,” Khelif said on social media in a promotional video. “And, now, I’m back.”

Khelif won the Olympic gold at the 2024 Paris Games and was in the spotlight alongside Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting — another gold medal winner — as they faced intense scrutiny fueled by misconceptions about both boxers’ sex.

Both fighters were allowed to compete by the IOC after being disqualified from the 2023 world championships by the Russian-dominated International Boxing Association. The IBA claimed the women failed unspecified eligibility tests.

However, the IOC applied sex eligibility rules used in previous Olympics and said Khelif and Lin passed.

World Boxing took over as the sport’s governing body last year, and it implemented a sex eligibility policy requiring all fighters to take a genetic test designed to identify the presence of a Y chromosome.

Khelif has not competed in World Boxing-sanctioned events since the implementation of the test.