In perhaps the most compassionate moment in an Olympic Games full of compassionate moments, as Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won the women’s welterweight gold medal by unanimous decision, spectators rose from their seats, many waving Algerian flags and chanting her name.
“Imane! Imane! Imane!” they shouted as Khelif ended the fight she had dominated with a little Ali shuffle.
Khelif had been at the centre of the worst controversy of the Paris Games a week earlier, when her Italian opponent retired after 46 seconds, claiming Khelif’s powerful punches had put her in danger. A flood of hysterical transphobic misinformation followed, with prominent conservative culture warriors such as JK Rowling posting inflammatory messages: “Watch this and then explain why you are OK with a man hitting a woman in public for your entertainment.”
Khelif was born a woman and has always competed as a woman, said the International Olympic Committee, which immediately defended Khelif’s sporting achievements and her personal dignity. This was also done by the leadership of Algeria, where it is illegal to identify as transgender or homosexual.
What happened next ensured that the 2024 Paris Games will go down in history as the “DEI Olympics” – the “Olympics of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion” in a nation whose motto is “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity), in a capital originally nicknamed the “City of Light” for its commitment to Enlightenment values.
Khelif became a hero.
In another time and place, Khelif would have been banned from the 2023 World Championship, as was the case with the now-discredited International Boxing Association, which claimed, but provided no evidence, that a genetic test showed she had male XY chromosomes and a disorder of sexual development (DSD) that gave her an unfair physical advantage. Khelif would have been dismissed as “different,” a freak of nature (as if all elite athletes aren’t freaks of nature). She would have been bullied into irrelevance.
Khelif and the DEI Olympics are exactly what the politically fractured, war-torn world needs in the summer of 2024. She was celebrated not only for her victory over hate, but also for defying gender stereotypes that define femininity and masculinity as either/or.
Paris was the ideal location for the Olympic Games of Tolerance. The opening ceremony featured performers in women’s clothing, which was derided by far-right Christians as “vulgar” and “satanic.” Paris has come a long way since hosting the first modern games in 1900, where women played only a minor role. In 2024, the Olympic Games will finally achieve gender parity.
US water polo goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson competed in her third Olympic Games in Paris. She is still the only black player on the team and one of very few in the sport. She is now speaking out more about diversity and “embracing her roots after shying away from the topic as a younger player,” said coach Adam Krikorian.
“Our sport and many other aquatic sports are not representative of the United States, and I don’t think the best athletes will compete until we have good representation,” said Johnson, who grew up in Redland, south of Miami-Dade, and graduated from Ransom Everglades High School. She and her teammates fell short of their goal of winning a fourth consecutive gold medal (it would have been Johnson’s third), losing in the bronze medal match, finishing fourth. “Having access and role models – people who look like you – is so important to getting kids interested in the sport in the first place and making them feel like they belong. Breaking down those barriers and creating a path to opportunity is super important. There’s still a lot of work to be done. We could be doing a lot more.”
Simone Biles talked about how gymnastics has transformed from a sport with only a few individual black stars like Dominique Dawes and Gabby Douglas to one where black, Asian-American and Hispanic athletes win medals.
“We’ve seen an increasing number of all-black or mixed podiums in men’s and women’s gymnastics,” she said. One of the reasons she and Jordan Chiles decided to bow to Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade on the floor exercise medal podium was to highlight an all-black appearance in the Olympic spotlight. “We want to help young girls see themselves in those places.”
Of the 10,500 athletes competing in the Paris Games, half are women. Conscious of its outdated, sexist image, the IOC has been steadily adding women’s sports and mixed competitions to the program to ensure greater equality.
The U.S. women, reaping the benefits of Title IX, would not only win more medals than the U.S. men, but would also finish third in the overall medal count behind the entire U.S. team and China.
Olympic mothers received support in Paris from Allyson Felix, the eleven-time Olympic medalist in athletics. Felix, who has a six-year-old daughter of her own, initiated the establishment of the first daycare center in the Olympic Village and plans to expand it in Los Angeles.
According to the website OutSports, at least 193 LGBTQ athletes participated in the most inclusive Olympic Games in history. Participants included diver Tom Daley, basketball player Brittney Griner, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson and middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz, among others.
“During this politically crazy time in the United States, about 500 anti-LGBTQ laws have been passed,” Hiltz said. “Sports can set a positive, inclusive example. I feel loved and supported at the Olympics.”
U.S. rugby sevens player Ilona Maher, who was mocked on social media for her broad shoulders and aggressive playing style, countered with witty body-positive posts that made her a Tik Tok star and everyone’s buddy in what she called the Olympic Villa.
58-year-old table tennis grandma Zeng Zhiying, 59-year-old Canadian equestrian Mario Deslauriers and 69-year-old Australian equestrian Mary Hanna spoke out vigorously against age discrimination.
Boxer Cindy Ngamba made history by becoming the first refugee Olympic athlete to win a medal – a bronze. Ngamba, who fled Cameroon as a child, said she was proud to serve as an inspiration to the world’s 120 million displaced people.
“Never feel forgotten,” she said.
Joyful Parisians celebrated athletes of all kinds, whether it was nerdy French table tennis brothers Felix and Alexis Lebrun or Bhutanese marathon runner Kinzang Lharmo, who finished last, 90 minutes behind winner Sifan Hassan. Spectators along the course cheered Lharmo on to keep going when she stopped, and ran alongside her toward the finish line.
All that love, sportsmanship and enthusiasm created an Olympic surge after the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which not only took place in time zones inconvenient for American audiences, but were doomed to failure due to the COVID pandemic, being staged without spectators and for television, with athletes wearing masks, avoiding each other in the Olympic Village and flying home as soon as they were done.
Paris, a photogenic tourist mecca, proved to be the cure for the Olympic malaise. Athletes, fans and television viewers alike delighted in beach volleyball on the Eiffel Tower, fencing at the Grand Palais, equestrian competitions at Versailles, triathlons and open-water swimming in the Seine, tennis at Roland Garros, track and field on the lavender oval of the Estade de France and cyclists zipping past historic landmarks.
NBCUniversal did well, recording a 16-day average of 31.3 million viewers – 82% more than Tokyo (17.2 million).
“We needed these Olympics. I haven’t felt this kind of Olympic energy in a long time,” said Tara Lipinski, NBC commentator and figure skating gold medalist from Nagano. “It reminds us of the power of the Olympics. The feeling of joy, hope and camaraderie.”
It sounds cheesy, but for a host country tired of divisive politics and for Americans exhausted by the 24/7 presidential election campaign, the Olympics had a cleansing and invigorating effect.
“Now is the time – of course viewing habits have changed, people’s attitudes to sports may have changed – but now is the time for the Olympics to get back on track, and that’s what it’s coming down to,” said Bob Costas, NBC’s former Olympics anchor.
Sports marketing expert Terrence Burns said the Paris Olympics took place at exactly the time when the world needed them most.
“The Olympics have always been a vaccine against hatred, fear and misunderstanding. That’s exactly what they were invented for,” he wrote in a social media post. “Paris 2024 has proven that the power of the Olympic Games to unite and inspire us, to force us to pause and be proud of who we are, is still present in our hearts.”
