Imane Khelif was given a champion’s welcome by a legion of adoring fans as she flaunted her Olympic gold medal in a bus parade around her home city.
The bus slowed to a crawl as the throng pressed in, with thousands of mobile phones pointed up to snap an image of the boxer.
Khelif claimed gold in the women’s welterweight category but her participation was shrouded in controversy after the IBA disqualified her from last year’s World Boxing Championship having detected male XY chromosomes in testing.
The Olympics admitted her and Taiwan‘s Lin Yu-ting on the basis that their passports said they were female, with both insisting they were born as such and never identifying otherwise.
Sharing pictures of her triumphant parade, Khelif wrote on Instagram: ‘The height of pride and honor is in representing your country and raising its flag high.
Masses of fans gathered to welcome Imane Khelif back to her home city of Tiaret in Algeria
It was hard for the bus to move as…