Three days ago, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won a gold medal in the women’s welterweight division of the 2024 Olympics. It should have been a triumphant moment for an athlete who spent years training for this moment and won all four of her matches on the world’s biggest stage. Instead, her victory was shadowed by a relentless campaign of bad-faith criticism focused on factually baseless claims about her gender. Because the games took place in France, which has robust laws against online hate speech, Khelif has now filed a legal complaint with a Paris prosecutor’s office.
According to the Associated Press, Khelif’s lawyers filed the complaint alleging “aggravated cyber-harassment” on Aug. 9, the day she won the gold medal. The complaint reportedly does not name a specific perpetrator; instead, the prosecutor’s office will conduct an investigation and decide whether to charge anyone under the statute, which could call for two to five years in prison and tens of thousands of Euros in fines.
Attorney Nabil Boudi wrote in the complaint that the campaign of “speculation fueled by malicious individuals… exceeded 100 million views” on the X platform, becoming an “ordeal” for Khelif.
“I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects,” Khelif reportedly told the sports video news service SNTV. She added that online harassment “can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
The manufactured right-wing controversy around Khelif began on Aug. 1, when her opponent, Italian boxer Angela Carini, withdrew from a bout after just 46 seconds, saying, “I have never been hit so hard in my life.” This led to a torrent of specious critiques from people like Elon Musk, J.K. Rowling, Donald Trump, and Logan Paul, all of whom falsely suggested that Khelif is a trans woman and/or that she should be barred from women’s athletic events. In fact, Khelif, 25, was raised as a girl from birth, has never identified as a man, and lives in a country with strict anti-trans laws that would make the scenario invented by conservative critics extremely unlikely. The allegations about her gender are simply not true. (Paul later posted a statement that began with the word “OOPSIES,” admitting that “I might be guilty of spreading misinformation.”)
While the Russian-dominated International Boxing Association disqualified Khelif and another boxer from last year’s world championships, that decision has been roundly rejected by the boxing community; the IBA is currently led by a right-wing Putin crony with a history of homophobic and transphobic remarks. International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has condemned the “hate speech…aggression and abuse” directed at Khelif, which he linked to Russia’s ongoing conflict with the IOC.
Carini, for her part, swiftly disavowed the entire line of attack being employed by her supposed supporters. The day after the bout, she said she’d like to apologize to Khelif: “All this controversy certainly made me sad, and I also felt sorry for my opponent, she had nothing to do with it and like me was only here to fight… I have nothing against Khelif and on the contrary if I happened to meet her again I would give her a hug.”
Christine Wonsley with her husband, Elmore (second from left), attorney Ben Crump (left), and Rev. Al Sharpton (right), during a memorial service for her son Nolan Xavier Wells.Gerald Herbert/AP
Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino stand as Spain celebrates its World Cup victory, on July 19, 2026.
America Got the World Cup It Deserves — Good and Bad
For the past six weeks or so I’ve been having a recurring fight with my friends. The dispute is over whether or not it’s ethical to support the U.S. national team in the World Cup.
To the vast majority of people reading this article, this is an absurd question: of course you can and should support the United States Men’s National Team, you weirdo. And look, I’m with you. But despite the fact that my friends are pompous dorks who are no fun to watch the game with, the question they raise is valid: Are our national teams avatars of the administration in power, or of the people and promise of that country?
If you believe the former, then yeah, it’s pretty fucking weird to support the USMNT. In doing so, by that thinking, you’d be engaging in a sort of athletic nationalism on behalf of a country run by Donald Trump, the most corrupt president in history, who forced the Iranian national team to flee across the border immediately after the final whistle of each of their games, whose federal police have shot numerous civilians dead in the street during a brutal immigration crackdown, who has started a war and supported a genocide while covering up his close personal friendship with the most notorious pedophile in modern history.
I mean just look at him. On Sunday he waddled down onto the field to present Spain with their trophy, lingering on stage with the victorious team as they tried to celebrate. The presence of Mexican President Claudia Steinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did little to dilute the image of Trump standing next to his crony Gianni Infantino, grinning at all the trappings of their power, hands caressing a trophy they’d done nothing to earn, lingering well past his cue to leave Spain to their glory. This World Cup, literally, had Donald Trump’s fingerprints all over it.
And yet, this was one of the most thrilling, beautiful World Cups in recent memory. That’s America, baby — contradictions abound.
Over the past five weeks of the greatest athletic competition on Earth, we’ve seen games that will literally never leave my memory. The final, which I attended yesterday in New Jersey, was remarkably forgettable — a 0-0 draw until the 106th minute, with Spain dominating every second of play and yet unable to score, undone time and time again by their insistence on tricksy passing and the personal heroics of Argentina’s goalkeeper Emi Martinez. The rest of the tournament, however, delivered. Cabo Verde, refusing to lose until the very last moments of the first knockout round, battling back again and again against both teams that would eventually play in the final. The sheer dominance of France’s Kylian Mbappe in front of goal, scoring at will, rivaled only by the aging GOAT Leo Messi and the Norwegian warlord Erling Haaland. England’s heroic stand at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, 45 minutes in the rain, a man down, holding out for the win and singing “Wonderwall” with what felt like half the stadium when it ended. Off the pitch, too: the Algerian national team being welcomed with open arms by Lawrence, Kansas; Scottish braves drinking Boston dry and partying wildly with Haitian fans that overcame so much just to be at the tournament. In Mexico, of course, the World Cup was everything, and its fans threw joyous South Koreans pumped full of tequila into the air, and celebrated in the streets with opposing fans even after their hard-fought defeat to England.
For the United States, what the 2026 World Cup was — what our team was, what our fans were, what our performance as hosts was — is a reflection of two things at once: what our nation is and what it can be.
Our star striker, Folarin Balogun, was born here by accident, a citizen only because of a birthright system that our president is currently trying to erase. We have Ricardo and Giovanni and Freeman and Zendejas. We have another striker whose name is Haji, for goodness sake. I look at that team and I see the country America can be, one in which any soul born in or living within our arbitrary borders can become part of a great national project that seeks to improve the lives of everyone it can. And yet, I can also look at that team and see a reflection of what the country is, because there is an anchor around its neck. When Balogun was — albeit unjustly — suspended for a crucial match, Trump himself stepped in. Cronyism saved the day and got Balogun reinstated, but ruined the fragile harmony the team had enjoyed. On the pitch against Belgium, they came apart. Temperamental star Christian Pulisic tried to go alone and then quit, aging defender Tim Ream’s legs failed him when he needed them most, a young goalkeeper slipped and fell when he had no good options for support.
What more can you say about a team, about our country? The team is an entity that is capable of more but still has so far to go, that is vulnerable to the same forces of avarice and selfishness and fear that plague our national identity writ large.
It’s possible to end the story there, to say good riddance to another failed year and fractured team. But I think that’s a mistake. I think if you believe that you haven’t really been watching. I think that’s also why it pissed me off so much that some of my friends wouldn’t root for the U.S. Yes, we have flaws, like every country involved in the tournament. Yes, our current team management and political government are filled with morons. But if you won’t put on the shirt you’re essentially opting out of our future. We can’t wait around for a better world, a better team, a better president, before we deign to lend our support. Progress only comes from effort, from caring, from believing in something more.
One of my favorite images of the World Cup was a crowd shot of the opening match against Paraguay in Los Angeles: every race, color and creed of American there is, all covered in red white and blue. It’s corny and trite, sure. But that’s what it’s all about. That’s why we’re here. You have to believe. The U.S. won that game 4-2. In four years, we’ll be even better.