Algerians on Olympic boxer Imane Khelif: ‘She’s the daughter of the people’

PARIS - One bought a ticket and ventured to the grounds and walked through the gates even though, he said, “I don’t know her, and I don’t really like boxing.” One traveled about 250 miles from Lyon to Paris because, she said, “I thought she needed us.” Two brothers just starting their 20s rode the slow train 250 miles from Strasbourg on the German border for a one-night stay in Paris because, one began, “Algeria is in our hearts.”

All joined a sudden throng of Algerians and Algerian-French who have forged a cheering noise grand enough to join a distinctive category among noises, even sports noises: It’s that ilk of din that seems to have journeyed from somewhere so deep in the gut that it has amassed consuming urgency and goose-bumping tenor.

As the small-town Algerian girl turned 25 and formidable in her second Olympics has faced a global firestorm about her gender, Algerians and Algerian-French at the boxing venues and in Algerian newspapers have provided a lesson to outsiders: Any question about whether a country often viewed as rigid would support an athlete sometimes viewed as an outlier has been met with a demolition that all would view as emphatic.

With the tennis dreamscape Roland Garros repurposed into a boxing joint Tuesday night, they poured through the stylish gates beforehand in defiance and down the stadium steps afterward in giddiness, Imane Khelif having won a unanimous decision over Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand to advance to the gold medal match.

“Actually, the story started when Imane faced injustice according to her gender,” Dhikra Boukhavouba, a young woman who came to Paris as a student and also has studied in Washington, said just after the bout. “They’re saying she was a man just because she’s an African, Algerian woman, really strong. And actually, Algerian people are known for having the blood, which means we support each other, even though we’re a really conservative country.

“But we respect women, we support each other, and especially when it’s a champion like Imane, and when we saw this injustice accorded to her, we really wanted, actually, to support her and to say that all the Algerian people are with her, and we are here to support her until the end, even if she wins or if she loses. We are here for her. We are here to support her because she’s an example of the resistance of Algerian women.”

She concluded, “She’s the daughter of the people.”

It’s the second time in Olympic history that Algeria, the north African land of 45 million that France stole from 1830 to 1962, has witnessed a crucial story about one of its female athletes. Most Algerians still regard as a legend Hassiba Boulmerka, the 1,500-meter runner who won Algeria’s first gold medal at Barcelona in 1992 under death threats from religious fanatics inside the country, who had to train in hiding in Berlin and who told the BBC in 2012: “As I crossed the line, I thrust a fist into the air. It was a symbol of victory, of defiance. It was to say: ‘I did it! I won! And now, if you kill me, it’ll be too late. I’ve made history!’”

This time, the trouble blared from outside the country, spawning a different dynamic. It has sprung from boxing politics and geopolitics. It has loudened the insinuations from the Russia-backed International Boxing Association during an Olympics that has banned both that association (for corruption) and Russia (save for a trickle of athletes). The words of the famous have spurred the actions of the everyday, fueling a sense they’re needed.

“Yeah, of course, of course,” said Ramy Siouala, 23, alongside his brother Hani Siouala, 21, carrying their Algerian flag and loaning it to another man for photos just before Khelif’s fight. “Because the world was against her, like Donald Trump and Elon Musk (have been). All those people were very bad to her and we are here to prove that she’s not alone, and we are here for her.”

That need to show support grabbed them enough to warrant the one-night trip from Strasbourg.

Inside the north edges of Paris, in the 18th arrondissement and the neighborhood of Barbes where many Algerians and Algerian-French reside, the story does not shout as it has elsewhere. In an area working-class in energy while rich in African cultures both North and sub-Saharan, it’s possible to walk for three hours on a Monday, past markets and hair salons and phone shops and phone shops and phone shops, without any indication of the story. At an old standby coffee shop Algerians frequent, a man behind the bar who declined to give his name wrote in a translation app, “There are several supporters (in the shop) who have said that” they support Khelif.

In Algeria, newspapers routinely deploy the word for “heroine” in reference to Khelif. One offered a video tour of her home. Others have drawn from her Olympic bio while noting how she sold bread and scrap metal and her mother sold couscous to help pay for her training. In the El Khabar newspaper, Mohamed Rabeh wrote that Khelif had “never burst into tears after any fight she had” before these Olympics and this pressure, but that “our heroine showed everyone that she is determined to fulfill a promise she made before this important sporting date to raise the national flag and play the national anthem in the sky of Paris by winning the first gold medal of its kind in Arab, African and Algerian women’s boxing at the Olympics, to put an end to all doubters and confirm that she is an example to be emulated.”

The Minister of Youth and Sport, Abderrahmane Hammad, referred to the IBA when he wrote on social media: “Our great Imane Khelif is under attack from an organization that has no legitimacy with the (International Olympic Committee). Incredible resources (will be) used to legally pursue and hold accountable anyone who dares to threaten or defame her. Our determination is limitless.”

He addressed her: “You are our pride.”

That pride has joined the soundtrack of these Olympics, both at the first boxing venue north of the city and here at the grander site. It gushed before the bout on the front steps, near the bust of Roland Garros, the aviator, and the sculpture of Roland Garros tennis ruler Rafael Nadal, where 49-year-old Algerian and Paris-based rapper Boumohrat Abdelkader Kaky spoke.

“In sports, even guys can be assessed to have elevated (testosterone),” he said. “So the case of Imane, I think it’s politicized - it’s more political than anything else. … It’s more directed at Algeria than at Imane, but Imane has been the subject of all of this, that and the poor thing she does not deserve, because she’s an athlete - she’s not in politics. It is a shame, a great shame.”

Further in stood two friends who had just finished getting photos, Yacine Harrachif, 31, and Nassim Sahnoune, 38. Sahnoune said he didn’t know Khelif and didn’t care for boxing, but had to be there.

“For me, it’s not only her; it’s for every woman,” he said. “I don’t like discrimination in general, and in this case - we can’t live in a world where people decide if you are a girl or a boy (by photo or video). It’s impacted me because we can’t live in a world like this. Not only because she’s Algerian, it’s because she’s a woman and …”

“We cannot make opinion and judgment about women’s bodies today, in this society that we live in,” Harrachif chimed in. “She’s someone doing sports. She’s professional. She’s an athlete. … The situation is very sad because they came through her dad, they had to show the proof about her gender today (as the father did on video Tuesday), and to me, it’s not comfortable. So that’s why we came.”

Inside, by 10:44 p.m. when the announcements of names for Khelif’s bout began, the gales of noise began with them. “Imane! Imane! Imane!” they chanted. Flags bounced. Three women in hijabs on the front edge of an upper deck cheered and danced. When, at 10:59, the referee stood with the boxers and the announcer rumbled the identity of the winner beginning with, “In blue …”, a moment of hesitation preceded a boom of noise.

Outside afterward, Hayate Soufyane and Sehil Boussafi wore T-shirts with Khelif in a photo, her name just above and the words “Made In Algeria” just below.

“We came to support Imane,” Soufyane said, “and we are very pained by what she has suffered, the harassment she has experienced on the internet. And that’s why we came here today to support her, and it’s true that many Algerians came here today, they came out in force, and she really deserves it. We have goose bumps and we are full of emotions - and really we are happy.”

Across the walking area beneath the stadium, Khadidja Brahimi, a makeup artist from Lyon, sat in chic attire with her glasses tucked onto her forehead and hijab. She and a friend reveled in the evening. They searched through a translation app for a word to describe their hope as a role in society for Khelif and came up with “example.”

“She needs that, and she deserves everything,” Brahimi said. “I know the city where she’s from because I have family next to her. They are poor, and so it’s amazing to see someone from this city come here in Paris and do this.”