Imane Khelif, freeing the hypocritical Algerians

María José Martínez Patiño was born in Vigo (Spain) in 1961 and was at the peak of her athletic performance when she could not compete in Los Angeles in 1984. She watched the Olympics on television from her sofa at home because her qualifying score for the hurdles speed event was 13:64 and she ran 13:68 after arriving at a rehabilitation center to donate blood for her brother who had leukemia. He seemed to be going through a personal disaster, but it was nothing compared to what was about to happen.

Two years later, the suspension came and he withdrew from all competitions. On January 29, 1986, El País announced on its cover: “Maria José Martínez Patiño has her athlete’s license revoked for having male chromosomes.” Maria, the first Spanish woman in history to receive a scholarship and live and train at the Spanish High Performance Sports Centre in Madrid, was now considered a man.

Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is a condition in which female physical characteristics are developing but with male genetic traits.

During the first three months of life in the womb, all babies have identical genitalia, which change over time depending on the genetic load. For people with AIS, the syndrome is inherited through a recessive inheritance linked to the mother’s X chromosome. If they are female (two X chromosomes), they are not affected, but if they only have one X chromosome and carry the genetic variant, they will develop the disease.

Maria was banned for four years until the lawsuits she filed against the IOC and the Spanish Federation were sanctioned in her favor. He received a million dollars in compensation that he never received so that he could continue to campaign, and then worked for the Spanish Olympic Committee. Today, she is a consultant to the IOC and the European Commission, and on the eve of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the problem of boxers Iman Khalif and Lin Yuting emerged.

The first gender test in the Olympic movement occurred in the mid-20th century, when women began to compete. Determining whether an athlete is a woman was established from the beginning as a criterion of equality and the idea that everyone has the right to practice sports without discrimination. Khalif and Yuting were banned from the boxing association but accepted by the International Olympic Committee to compete in the Olympics.

What was the problem? The International Boxing Association report made it clear: “The athletes were not tested for testosterone, but rather underwent independent and accredited testing, the details of which remain confidential.” “The evidence conclusively showed that two athletes did not meet the necessary eligibility criteria but were determined to have a competitive advantage over other female athletes.”

In medical school, when you study androgen insensitivity syndrome, they explain why the patients are female, but what happens in academia is not necessarily replicated in sports. Today, two women are stigmatized around the world.

The Algerian boxer, who has been considered a “pervert” on social media, has competed in international boxing championships for years: including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships.

Typically, no one objects to Zhang Ziyu, a young Chinese who is two meters and thirty centimeters tall and plays basketball. Her super height does not match the height of her teammates and opponents, but it still has a certain logic if you consider that her mother Yu Ying was a main player of the national team in the 2000s and reached a height of 1.98 meters, while her father reached 2.13 meters and also participated in provincial orange round ball competitions. Deep down, everyone suspected that there was something behind Zhang, that she had an advantage, just watching her play, while the opponent’s hands were not even at the height of her face.

For now, unlike Khalif’s situation, no one is complaining about having to compete with a genetically benefited woman.

“What happened in the newspaper headlines was a weapon that tried to destroy me as a person, not as an athlete. As an athlete, the rules had destroyed me: they separated me from everything, I no longer had the right to compete. But they did not end my life, at some point I felt I could not bear it anymore… I found myself so alone, so abandoned in a country where the day before I was Spanish champion and set national and World Cup records… From night to night tomorrow people close the doors of their residences, they take away your scholarships and tell you: ‘Go away. Find a life and go back to your town’”, Patiño said a few years ago, recalling the darkest moments of his life.

Thirty years later, history repeated itself.