A decision by the International Olympic Committee to clear two athletes to compete in the women’s boxing competition at Paris after they were disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for failing to meet gender eligibility criteria is being called into question by activists after a video showing one of the boxer’s athletic prowess went viral on social media. 

The widely-shared video shows an Algerian boxer, Imane Khelif, pummeling a female fighter, Brianda Cruz Sandoval, during the World Boxing Tour Golden Belt Series in 2022.  

A year after the match, Ms. Khelif was disqualified from the World Championships in 2023 along with a fellow boxer, Lin Yu-ting, of Taiwan, after the International Boxing Association found that they had “XY chromosomes,” the association’s president, Umar Kremlev, told Russian news outlets, according to the Guardian newspaper. 

Mr. Kremleve also said that a “series of DNA-tests” had “uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women.” 

Ms. Khelif rebuffed the disqualification, claiming to be a victim of a “conspiracy.” After Ms. Khelif was disqualified from the World Championships in 2023, the other boxer in the viral video, Ms. Sandoval, commended the decision, and noted that her fight against the Algerian was unlike anything she had “ever felt” in her “13 years as a boxer.” 

“Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized,” she wrote on X. 

According to the International Olympic Committee’s internal information system, which is provided to journalists at Paris, Ms. Khelif was “disqualified just hours before her gold medal showdown against Yang Liu at the 2023 world championships at New Delhi, India, after her elevated ­levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria.”

While the Olympic boxing tournament previously followed the rules of the International Boxing Association, the Association was banned from running the Paris Olympics following a series of judging scandals and governance issues. The games are now being run by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit. 

Under the rules of the Boxing Unit, the Olympic Committee determined that both Ms. Khelif and Ms. Yu-ting had met the necessary criteria to compete in the women’s division this week at Paris. 

“Everyone competing in the women’s category is complying with the competition eligibility rules,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Tuesday at the daily news conference by organizers of the Paris Olympics.

“They are women in their passports and it’s stated that this is the case — that they are female,” he added. 

However, as the video of Ms. Khelif gained more attention, the Committee’s decision began to face increasing scrutiny. 

Competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, a critic of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, shared the video on X along with a message condemning the Olympics for glorifying “men punching women in the face with the intent of knocking them unconscious.” 

“Imane Khelif is 1 of 2 male boxers fighting women at the Olympics. A woman is going to die,” she added. 

An advocacy group that campaigns for the sex-based rights of women, Fair Play For Women, added that, “On Thursday the world will be watching this man punch a woman in the face. This is wrong. You know it is too.”

The Olympics spokesman, Mr. Adams, rebuffed the criticism. “These athletes have competed many times before for many years, they haven’t just suddenly arrived — they competed in Tokyo,” he said on Tuesday.  

“The federation needs to make the rules to make sure that there is fairness but at the same time there is the ability for everyone to take part that wants to. That is a difficult balance,” he added. 

Ms. Khelif’s first match at the Paris Olympics will take place Thursday against Angela Carini of Italy and Ms. Yu-ting’s first fight is slated for the following day. 

In order to qualify to compete in the women’s category at the Paris Olympics, a transgender woman will need to have completed her transition before the age of 12 as to avoid the physical advantages that arise from undergoing male puberty, Newsweek reported. 

Select Olympic sports impose further restrictions on transgender athletes competing in women’s categories.