{"id":955968,"date":"2026-11-07T13:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T13:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/955968\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T13:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T13:34:15","slug":"olympic-champion-imane-khelif-to-make-professional-boxing-debut-in-december-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/955968\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic champion Imane Khelif to make professional boxing debut in December | Boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Algerian has not fought since winning gold at Paris 2024, where she was embroiled in a gender row.<\/p>\n

Published On 6 Nov 20266 Nov 2026<\/p>\n

Olympic champion Imane Khelif<\/a> has announced she will make her professional boxing debut next month in Paris, her first appearance in the ring since winning welterweight gold in the French capital in 2024.<\/p>\n

Algeria\u2019s Khelif, who found herself in the middle of a major gender row<\/a> at the 2024 Olympics, holds a pro licence from France\u2019s boxing federation and was forced to postpone her return to action in April after suffering a training injury.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old said during a news conference on Friday alongside her coach Kamel Abdesselam and promoter Yacin Berrabah that she will take on Clarida Sarabia in the super-welterweight class on December 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been over two years since I last boxed, and I\u2019ve really missed being in the ring,\u201d said Khelif.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last couple of years have been quite difficult. The time has come to turn professional, and I\u2019m going to give it my all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdesselam is confident that Khelif could win a world title \u201cwithin three to five fights\u201d and compared his fighter with Muhammad Ali.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to put Imane on top of the world,\u201d said Abdesselam.<\/p>\n

Frequently accused of being a transgender athlete, Khelif was born female but naturally carries the SRY gene, located on the Y chromosome, that indicates masculinity.<\/p>\n

In February, she revealed in an interview with French sports daily L\u2019Equipe that she had undergone hormonal treatment to lower her testosterone levels ahead of the Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Algerian has not fought since winning gold at Paris 2024, where she was embroiled in a gender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[167841,64,63,802,2057,2592,12241,588,85],"class_list":["post-955968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-algeria","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-middle-east","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}