"I am a woman like any other woman and I hope people will stop bullying"

Imane Khelif has sparked a lot of controversy in the last few weeks after her presence at the Olympic Games became the subject of fierce contention.

Still, the Algerian welterweight boxer kept calm and won the gold medal at Paris 2024 after defeating China's Yang Liu by unanimous decision.

Khelif had been confronted by accusations from IBA, the boxing body that has been expelled from the Olympic movement, that she should not be competing in the women's category.

The chaos escalated when the Algerian abruptly halted Italy's Angela Carini in just 46 seconds.

"I'm a woman like any other woman," she said after the final. "I was born a woman, I lived a woman, I competed as a woman. There's no doubt about that."

She added: "There are enemies, enemies of success. This is what I call them.

"These are the enemies of success. And that also gives my success a special taste because of these attacks."

She hopes a lesson can be learned from her extraordinary experience.

"I think that the whole world now knows the story of Imane Khelif. I'm from a very small village, from a very small family. I was born and raised in poor neighbourhoods. But my family was always proud of me, they always supported me in this sport," she said.

"My message to the whole world is that they should commit to Olympic principles and they should avoid bullying. They should not bully people. This is a message of the Olympics. The Olympic values are extremely important and I hope that people will stop bullying.

"I hope that we will not see any similar attacks in future Olympics. The attacks I heard on social media were extremely bad, they were meaningless, and they impact the dignity of people. All the women that came to support me today sent a message, saying that our honour is above everything else," concluded Khelif.