Imane Khelif has made a shocking admission about hormone treatment after Paris Olympic controversy.
According to FirstPost, Olympic boxing champion revealed in an interview with French sports daily L’Equipe that she had undergone hormone treatments to lower her testosterone levels ahead of the 2024 Games.
Khelif was embroiled in a gender row at the Paris Games where she won gold in the women’s 66kg category.
The 26-year-old Algerian said in the interview published Wednesday, February 4, “I have female hormones. And people don’t know this, but I have taken hormone treatments to lower my testosterone levels for competitions.”
Khelif confirmed she has the SRY gene, located on the Y chromosome that indicates masculinity.
“Yes, and it’s natural,” she said, adding that she is “surrounded by doctors, a professor is monitoring me… For the Paris Games qualifying tournament, which took place in Dakar, I lowered my testosterone levels to zero,” she added.
Algerian boxer who became center of a gender row at the Paris Games also faced criticism from US President Donald Trump and Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
Khelif also addressed the criticism she received from Trump saying that she respects him as he is the president of the US but “he cannot distort the truth.”
She once again stressed, “I am not a trans woman, I am a girl. I was raised as a girl, I grew up as a girl, the people in my village have always known me as a girl.”
Khelif, who is aiming to compete in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, knows that she will have to agree to mandatory gender testing imposed by World Boxing, and says she is ready.
