Tennis star Andrey Rublev caught in unnecessary gender controversy

Russia’s tennis star Andrey Rublev has apologised for a post about an Algerian women's boxer after her win over her Italian rival at the Paris Olympics started a gender debate. The mega-event in the capital of France is moving towards its conclusion, and the remaining athletes are giving their all to secure the ultimate glory for their respective countries.

Women’s boxing came into the limelight after a round-of-16 bout between Italy’s Angela Carini and Algeria’s Imane Khelif ended just after 46 seconds following a punch on the former. The Italian boxer refused to shake hands with Khelif and broke into tears in the middle of the ring, indicating that the contest was not fair as Khelif appeared to have an unnatural physique for a woman boxer.

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That incident was shared in the form of video on social media, especially on platforms such as X — previously known as Twitter — where it was claimed that Algeria’s Khelif had cheated and was a man participating in the women’s category. Rublev, after watching such videos, posted a detailed message on social media where he claimed that it was not fair to Italy’s Carini to compete with a biological man.

“The way I grew up, since I was a kid, is that I was taught to protect women,” he wrote. “No matter what the situation is with a woman, nothing can be worst for a man than hurting a woman physically. And now on the biggest and most important sporting event ‘Olympic Games’ we see live how a man who identifies as a woman is hitting a women (saying it’s equal rights boxing) and no one is stopping this. If a man would identify as a kid, would they let him compete on a kids boxing tournament? This is something I will never understand. I feel really sorry for the Italian athlete who was preparing for a long time for this moment.”

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World number nine later received strong backlash from the platform users for spreading misinformation, as it was cleared later that Khelif was indeed a woman and that she had done nothing wrong in participating in an event where she was allowed to participate. Rubleve not only then deleted the earlier post but also posted a detailed message where he apologised to the Algerian boxer and highlighted why he posted a detailed message first and what his intention was.

"I decided to post it because, first of all, I wanted to make an opinion that I'm against women's violence, any towards women,” he wrote in his second post. “And I did that post. So it was nothing against anyone, it was just that I was against violence towards women. And then I didn't - it was my bad - I didn't check enough all the information, all the news. Because the sports website that I checked - I don't want to blame them and take out responsibility of mine - it's still my responsibility that I did that mistake and I didn't check enough. So I'm sorry and I want to apologise that I didn't check that information, and that's why I take it out."

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina

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