Algerian boxer Imane Khelif claimed a unanimous points decision against China's Yang Liu in the women's welterweight gold medal fight on Friday evening. 

The 25-year-old won welterweight (maximum 66 kilos or 145 pounds) gold after facing intense scrutiny throughout the competition.

She completed a dominant run through her weight class at the Olympics, not being judged to lose a single round en route to the final.

"I'm very happy. For eight years this has been my dream, and I'm now the Olympic champion and gold medalist," Khelif said after the fight. "I've worked for eight years, no sleep, eight years tired. Now I'm Olympic champion."

Large numbers of Algerian fans had flocked to the Court Philippe Chatrier at Roland Garros, better known as the home to French Open tennis, to cheer for Khelif.

Gender eligibility furor overshadows Olympic run

But Khelif's Olympics have been characterized by intense focus on her being excluded from women's competition by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023, a ruling that Khelif and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have disagreed with. 

The IBA previously administered Olympic boxing until 2019, and so the IOC's verdict on Khelif's eligibility stands. 

Khelif, like Taiwanese featherweight boxer Lin Yu-ting, is deemed by the IBA to have failed sex eligibility tests. The Russian-run federation, however, has come under criticism for lack of transparency on its testing standards. 

"I am a woman like any woman. I was born a woman and I have lived as a woman but there are enemies to success and they can't digest my success," Khelif told reporters after the Olympic bout.

The boxers may have any of a number of conditions known as differences of sex development, or DSDs. The most famous past Olympic case of a similar type would be middle-distance runner Caster Semenya, from South Africa. 

Both have also faced false accusations of being men or being transgender fighters. 

Lin Yu-ting fights in the featherweight (maximum 57 kilos or 125 pounds) gold medal contest on Saturday. 

Both Khelif and Lin had fought, without such attention and without claiming medals, at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.

Olympic boxing is typically seen as the pinnacle of amateur fighting and is unavailable to the pros.  

msh/sms (AFP, Reuters)