PARIS (AP) — Olympic champion Imane Khelif injured her left shoulder while training over the weekend and was forced to postpone a professional fight scheduled for later this month in Paris.
Organizers said Monday that her April 23 fight at the iconic Salle Wagram in the French capital against German boxer Julia Igel was delayed to a date yet to be announced.
“This decision follows the injury sustained by Imane Khelif during a training session this weekend in Paris,” the organizers said in a statement.
A medical examination carried out Monday revealed “a painful syndrome in the left shoulder,” they said. “Due to the intensity of the biomechanical demands involved in high-level boxing, the medical team deemed the athlete’s condition temporarily incompatible with competition.”
The event was also set to feature two bouts for WBA titles and organizers decided to reschedule the entire evening.
“The health and physical integrity of our athletes remain our absolute priority. We wish Imane Khelif a speedy recovery. At an event of this level, including WBA championships, it was essential to guarantee optimal conditions for all participating boxers,” said former boxer Brahim Asloum, the promoter of the gala.
Tickets already purchased will be refunded, organizers added.
Khelif won the Olympic gold at the 2024 Paris Games amid international scrutiny on her and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting — another gold medal winner — and misconceptions over 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 last August requiring all fighters to take a one-time 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.
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