Imane Khelif Denies Claims of Retirement, Plans to Compete in 2028 Olympics

Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif was the subject of a recent newspaper interview in France. Her former coach suggested that Khelif had walked away from boxing in the wake of a scandal about gender identity and sex.

In an interview with French newspaper Nice-Matin earlier this week, Khelif’s former manager Nasser Yesfah said the Algerian had “left the world of boxing”, as quoted by The Independent. Yesfah then went on to clarify his comments, stating he was only referring to Khelif’s boxing commitments in the city of Nice.

Khelif was quick to respond to those statements on Facebook:

Khelif criticised Yesfah’s comments in a post on Facebook on Wednesday.

“It is based solely on statements made by a person who no longer represents me in any way, and whom I consider to have betrayed my trust and my country with his false and malicious statements,” Khelif wrote.

“I have never announced my retirement from boxing. I remain committed to my sporting career, training regularly and maintaining my physical fitness between Algeria and Qatar in preparation for upcoming events.

“The publication of such rumours is intended solely to disrupt and damage my sporting and professional career.”

There’s a longer backstory here but very briefly the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was governing boxing itself during the 2024 Olympics after having cut ties with the International Boxing Association in 2023. But after the situation with Khelif became a major scandal, the IOC recognized World Boxing as the new governing body for the sport going forward. 

In May of this year, World Boxing announced it would required a simple DNA test of all competitors going forward. In order to compete in the World Boxing tournament in June, Khelif would have had to get a cheek swab to prove she had XX chromosomes. And then, just a few days later, a site published results of a previous sex test which showed Khelif had XY (male) chromosomes.

Now, with Algeria’s Imane Khelif said to be on the verge of returning to competition, World Boxing has announced that Khelif, winner of a gold medal at the Paris Games, must take a chromosome test to prove eligibility – in its words, undergo “mandatory sex testing.” 

Unless someone manipulates the evidence, the result is going to be crystal clear, déjà vu all over again, because in chromosome tests given amid the International Boxing Association’s 2022 and 2023 world championships, the boxer’s DNA showed XY markers with “male” karyotypes. The IOC knew this. And still it permitted Khelif, and Yu Ting Lin of Chinese Taipei, whose tests turned up the same markers, to compete in Paris. Lin also won gold.

Here’s a photo of the test results next to a video of IOC president Thomas Bach defending Khelif last year.  

Thomas Bach – thanks for the invitation!
Here you go! Proof that Imane Khelif is a man. You’re welcome. pic.twitter.com/qt5DBywkDZ

— Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) June 2, 2025

That was in early June. Khelif was supposed to return to competition that same month, but she never registered.

Khelif had been due to compete in a World Boxing tournament in the Netherlands in June, but opted to skip it shortly after the governing body initially announced its plans to introduce sex testing for all boxers in its competitions.

In fact, Khelif has not competed a single time since the Olympics last year. So the fact that Khelif is promising to fight on and denying any intention of retiring is interesting. The implication is that Khelif expects to pass the genetic test and be shown to have XX (female) chromosomes. That’s the only way to compete going forward. It would also mean the results of the previous test published this summer were false. If that’s the case, why drop out of the competition in June? Why not just get it over with?

There’s an obvious answer to these questions, but it’s just as obvious that many media outlets aren’t willing to go there after having gone all in defending Khelif’s right to beat up women boxers last year to earn a gold medal.