Russian tennis star Andrey Rublev apologised for his “misleading post” about Algerian female boxer Imane Khelif who recently made it to the headlines after she defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in just 46 seconds at the Paris Olympics 2024.
Carini did not shake hands with Khelif after the match as she broke into tears midgame and indicated that the Algerian had an unusual physique for a female boxer.
Soon after, Rublev posted on his social media account sympathising with Carini saying that it was not fair to the Italian that she had 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.”
However, it was then cleared that Khelif was indeed a woman. Rublev then apologised for his earlier post and deleted the post and explained what his intentions were behind his first post.
"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."
