Italian boxer Angela Carini, who abandoned her Olympic bout against Algeria’s Imane Khelif inside 46 seconds, says she “wants to apologise” to her opponent for how she handled the moments after the fight.
Khelif is one of two athletes who have been cleared to compete in the women’s boxing in Paris, despite having been disqualified from last year’s Women’s World Championships for failing to meet eligibility criteria.
The 25-year-old’s participation in the Games has proved controversial, leading the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to defend her right to compete.
“All this controversy makes me sad,” Carini told Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.
“I’m sorry for my opponent, too. If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.”
Carini, also 25, said abandoning the fight had been a mature step to take, but she expressed regret at not shaking hands with Khelif afterwards.
“It wasn’t something I intended to do,” Carini said. “Actually, I want to apologise to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke.”
She added that if she met Khelif again, she would “embrace her”.
After taking a punch to the face inside 30 seconds during Thursday’s fight, Carini went to the corner for her coach to fix her headgear. After briefly resuming, she returned to her corner once more and stopped the fight.
Carini later told BBC Sport: “It could have been the match of a lifetime, but I had to preserve my life as well in that moment.”
The Russia-led International Boxing Association (IBA), which carried out the tests last year, said Khelif “failed to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA regulations”.
Khelif has always competed in the women’s division and is recognised by the IOC as a female athlete.
“The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said on Friday.
Later on Friday, the IBA president Umar Kremlev said his organisation would offer Carini $100,000 (£78,000) – which is the prize money it is offering gold medallists at the Games. That money would be split with half going to the boxer, a quarter to her trainer and a quarter to her federation.
