The Imane Khelif matter resurfaces: can we find in it, somehow, our common humanity?

The Imane Khelif matter resurfaces: can we find in it, somehow, our common humanity?

The story of Imane Khelif, the Algerian athlete who won gold in the women’s boxing competition at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, is filled with layers of complication. 

The question confronting all of us now, with the story in the spotlight again Monday, is not just whether the Imane Khelif matter will ultimately prove a decisive turn in the history of female sport but, too, whether it can serve as a poignant reminder of what we all can desperately need, all the more so in our fragile and beleaguered world, to be reminded of:

Our common humanity. 

UN expert on violence against women and girls takes shot at IOC over women's boxing

UN expert on violence against women and girls takes shot at IOC over women's boxing

The International Olympic Committee under president Thomas Bach has sought to work closely with the United Nations. Particularly when it comes to the rights and roles of women and girls. 

So it was all the more noteworthy that the UN’s “Special Rapporteur” for, among other matters, women in sports took a plain shot Tuesday at the IOC for the controversy that erupted at the Paris Games in women’s boxing.

A mess of WDSF's own making and that it has to own: Raygun is No. 1 in its World Ranking

A mess of WDSF's own making and that it has to own: Raygun is No. 1 in its World Ranking

Breaking is a real sport. The world’s best do street gymnastics to a hip-hop beat. To reiterate: it is a real sport, at its best extraordinary demanding and thrilling. It is that rare experience that locks the audience in. At world-class breaking, no one, repeat no one, idly scrolls their cellphone. The crowd, young, urban, is part of the scene. And it is a scene. A scene you want to be part of. Especially if you are a teen or 20-something, the Olympic target audience.

Breaking was in for Paris 2024. It’s out for LA28. It’s unclear whether it might come back for Brisbane in 2032 and beyond.

A key challenge in breaking’s Olympic future – in or out – is the World DanceSport Federation, the international federation that oversaw breaking to and through Paris 

Perhaps nothing underscores that challenge than the WDSF World Ranking, readily available online for both men and women, or in the jargon, bboys and bgirls:

-       Raygun, the Australian breaker Rachael Gunn, is women’s No. 1.

How can this be? USOPC, for real, does not show at Jordan Chiles CAS hearing

How can this be? USOPC, for real, does not show at Jordan Chiles CAS hearing

 In the latest twist to the gymnastics drama that has trailed out of the Paris Olympics, the American Jordan Chiles, now out of a bronze medal in the floor exercise after an arbitration ruling, made a lengthy social media post that said she was “overwhelmed” by the “love” she had received and “incredibly grateful” to, among others, USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

USA Gym? Sure.

The USOPC? Wow. Does anyone else read these rulings? Because it is as plain as day, page 9, paragraph 45, that the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee did not show at the hearing. Why? It didn’t offer a reason. Nor “did it contact” the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport “any more at any time until the conclusion of the proceedings” – that is, until the three-judge CAS panel ruled, as the world now knows, against Chiles.

Here we go: back to LA, the one place a Summer Olympics should always be in the United States

Here we go: back to LA, the one place a Summer Olympics should always be in the United States

News alert: the Games famously were in LA in 1932 and 1984 and will be back in 2028. If you think Paris was the best ever, and it’s right up there with London, with the proviso that all Games have backstage glitches, and on TV you lived none of that, none of the Olympic Village food drama, the COVID cases or, anywhere, the signage that would send you on trips to nowhere — LA formally now has next.

To be clear, the bar is set high, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach calling these Games, which came Sunday to a close, a “love story.”

Thomas Bach pulls a George Washington -- he is not IOC king after all but president

Thomas Bach pulls a George Washington -- he is not IOC king after all but president

PARIS – As most everyone knows, George Washington is the first president of the United States of America.

One of the stories American schoolkids learn about Washington is how he decided to stop being president at the end of his second four-year term. The new country had broken away from Britain. There they had a king. The king is king until he dies. In this new country, Washington said, things were going to be different.

In 21st century jargon, we would call what Washington did an expression of best practices and world-class governance.

Speaking Saturday before the fuil membership of the International Olympic Committee, president Thomas Bach, nearing the end of his second term, pulled a George Washington. He said he would step down next year, at the end of his mandated 12 years.

Algeria's Imane Khelif wins gold. Will this worldwide controversy spark constructive change?

Algeria's Imane Khelif wins gold. Will this worldwide controversy spark constructive change?

PARIS – In a unanimous decision, Algeria’s Imane Khelif defeated China’s Liu Yang Friday night at Roland Garros Stadium to win women’s Olympic under-66 kilogram boxing gold, a seemingly inevitable turn in the controversy that has shaken the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The issue is not, as IOC president Thomas Bach sought to depict it Friday – who is a woman?

Rather, it’s what rules does a sport seek to apply in deciding who gets to compete in the women’s category?

Those are two different things.

The bus breaks down. A guy from Belarus is on it, on the way to race a rowing final. What to do?

The bus breaks down. A guy from Belarus is on it, on the way to race a rowing final. What to do?

Instead, in one of the hugely untold stories of these Paris Olympics, in a move of empathy and understanding that underscores the common humanity that at its core is the essence of the Olympic spirit, the notion that together we are better than apart and that everyone, everyone, deserves a chance no matter the considerable differences ripping at us in a world torn by conflict, World Rowing pushed back the start of the Olympic final in men’s single sculls for one full hour.

Yauheni Zalaty not only got to the race.

He won silver.

But this, as amazing as it is, and it is amazing, only starts to tell the story.

India still with no individual female gold medalist, ever: 'Everyone here is feeling as if someone in the family has died'

India still with no individual female gold medalist, ever: 'Everyone here is feeling as if someone in the family has died'

PARIS – In India, the female wrestler Vinesh Phogat is something of a national hero. She seemed on the edge Wednesday of becoming one of the great stories – anywhere – of 21st century Olympic history, one you would make a documentary about, or even a feature film with soaring background music.

In her case, since her family has already been the subject of one movie – a second Bollywood blockbuster.

The script, please, because as her Twitter/X bio reads, “One day, all of your hard work will pay off,” and as of Tuesday night, Vinesh Phogat had put herself in position to maybe be India’s first female individual Olympic gold medalist.

And then, Wednesday morning, she did not make weight.

The artist at 60: Sergei Bubka, the original at sport but make it art, thriving, as ever his authentic self

The artist at 60: Sergei Bubka, the original at sport but make it art, thriving, as ever his authentic self

PARIS – So that everyone understands how high Mondo Duplantis went Monday night at Stade de France in winning the Olympic men’s pole vault, a big – and we are talking now a very tall –  giraffe, at the tippy top of its ears, is way, way up there. Like, it’s 20 feet down to the ground.

Born and raised in Louisiana to an American dad and Swedish mom, Duplantis competes for Sweden. On the third of his three tries, having raised the bar a full 15 centimeters from what he had previously cleared easily, the crowd howling, truly one of the best bits of Olympic theater in recent memory, Duplantis went 6.25 meters to win gold and set a new world record – 20 feet, 6 inches.

 The new record was exactly one centimeter over the prior Duplantis mark, 6.24. The man is a showman. Like someone before him.

“I knew he would do it,” said Sergei Bubka, who is now 60 and knows a thing or two about pole vaulting and, at a newish chapter in his professional world, is, now more than ever, thriving, as ever his authentic self.