PARIS: Algerian gender-row boxer Imane Khelif said that winning Paris Olympics gold on Friday was the perfect response to "attacks" and "bullying", and declared: "I am a woman like any other."
Khelif comprehensively won the women's 66kg final at Roland Garros, having been the focus of intense scrutiny in the French capital in the past fortnight.
Together with Taiwan's Lin Yu Ting, who fights in the 57kg women's final today, Khelif was disqualified from last year's world championships after they failed gender eligibility testing.
However they were cleared to compete in Paris, setting the stage for one of the biggest controversies of the Games.
After receiving a phone call from the Algerian president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the triumphant 25-year-old told beIN Sports: "I was subjected to bullying and a fierce campaign and this is the greatest response to them."
With the gold medal hanging around her neck, Khelif was asked at a packed press conference about the eligibility row that dogged her Games.
"I am fully qualified to take part, I am a woman like any other. I was born a woman, lived a woman and competed as a woman.
"These are enemies of success," she added.
"That gives my success a special taste because of these attacks."
The International Olympic Committee is organising the boxing in Paris because of concerns over the International Boxing Association's running of the sport.
At a press conference this week, the IBA's Kremlin-linked president Umar Kremlev claimed that Khelif and Yu Ting had undergone "genetic testing that shows that these are men."
The IBA were responsible for the world championships in 2023 that Lin and Khelif were thrown out of.
The IOC cleared them to box in Paris.
"They hate me and I don't know why," she said of the IBA.
"I sent them a message with this medal." - AFP