Several notable people criticized Khelif of participating in the incorrect gender category after she beat Carini.
“Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better?” J.K. Rowling said on a photo she posted from the battle on X.
She said that the image showed “the smirk of a male who knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment, enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.”
Elon Musk, meanwhile, agreed with swimmer Riley Gaines’s X post that “men don’t belong in women’s sports” and used the word “absolutely” to offer his support.
Nevertheless, at today’s press conference, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach stressed that Khelif is legally registered as a woman on her passport, has always competed as a woman, and was born and reared as a woman.
