Update: In an 11th-hour switch, Algeria’s Olympic team decided to pull Khelif’s spot as their nation’s flag -bearer for closing ceremony, handing that honor over to their gold-medaling gymnast Kaylia Nemour and bronze-medaling track runner Djamel Sedjati instead. The team didn't offer an explanation and dismissed any questions over the last-second change, saying it was "very normal."
The two reportedly male boxers who beat out their female opponents for the gold medal in their respective categories in Paris last week were tapped to carry their nation’s flags during the closing Olympic ceremony Sunday, marking a final middle finger to the women they beat - literally - despite allegedly not being women themselves.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting stood at the center of a roiling controversy over gender and the inclusion of biological males in women’s sports, with both boxers having been disqualified from last year’s World Championships after the International Boxing Association said tests confirmed both supposed female boxers had “XY” chromosomes, marking them as male. The International Olympic Committee, however, cleared both Khelif and Yu-ting to compete in the women’s category in the Paris games, with Khelif competing as a welterweight and Yu-ting as a featherweight.
Related: Second Female Boxer Protests After Losing To a Reported Male In Paris
The resulting confusion - and the refusal of both the IOC and the boxers to clear up whether they are actually genetically male - has led some sports experts to speculate that Khelif and Yu-ting may suffer from a Disorder of Sex Development (or “DSD”) that could have caused them to be born appearing female, but with XY chromosomes and high testosterone levels spurred by male puberty.
In the meantime, Khelif and Yu-ting cruised to gold medals in both categories, even as their female competitors protested being made to fight alleged biological males.