Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said “madness rules the world” in response to a transgender athlete defeating a woman in a boxing match at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.
Italian boxer Angela Carini faced off against Algeria’s Imane Khelif in the welterweight category, but resigned after just 46 seconds. After taking a series of crushing blows from her Algerian opponent, who was barred last year from the World Championships after failing a gender eligibility test, the 25-year-old from Naples forfeited the bout, saying, “this is unjust!”
Read more: Olympics committee face backlash after a woman is forced to fight transgender
Carini said she was hit harder than she ever has and feared that her nose was broken.
The fight sparked strong reactions worldwide, with the Serbian president denouncing the match in which a “biological male” was allowed to compete against a woman.
“Imagine that sickness and madness that has taken over the world, where men come in and beat up women and get a medal. Madness has taken over the world, everything has gone entirely crazy” Vucic told reporters on Thursday.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the fight “did not seem on an equal footing,” adding that “Athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to female competitions.”
Russian-Australian boxer Konstantin Tszyu, a former world light-welterweight champion, also condemned the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) clearance for Khelif.
“It’s not normal when a man performs in a boxing match against a woman! And if the IOC allows such cases, then what can we say about them? The IOC has completely lost its mind!” Tszyu told RBC.
The head of the coaching council of the Russian national boxing team, Eduard Kravtsov, said, “everyone understands perfectly well that this is a man.”
“And a man whose testosterone is through the roof has an immediate advantage over women. This is both physical strength and speed,” Kravtzov told reporters on Thursday. “Khelif was disqualified at the World Championships, but The IOC has its own rules. The fact that men enter women’s sports is disgusting.”
Khelif was disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023 as a biological male. The boxer appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but “withdrew the appeal during the process,” the IBA said on Wednesday. The association protested the IOC’s decision to allow Khelif to compete in Paris, arguing that its rules “raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety.”