The Related Press has come below fireplace for handing out its third-place slot for feminine athlete of the yr to Imane Khelif, the controversial Olympic boxer who failed gender exams.

The AP introduced its award rankings, noting that its Feminine Athlete of the 12 months was WNBA star rookie Caitlin Clark. The subsequent two runners-up had been U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles in second place and Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, who took third place with 4 votes.

Khelif, after all, stirred controversy for failing gender exams and being disqualified from the ladies’s class in boxing competitions all through 2023 however was nonetheless allowed to field as a lady within the Paris Olympics this yr. Unsurprisingly, the Algerian destroyed each lady confronted within the ring and gained the gold medal in boxing in August.

“The IBA disqualified Khelif, preventing within the 66-kilogram division, and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting, preventing within the 57-kilogram division, from preventing in its girls’s tournaments in March 2023 on the grounds that they failed unspecified exams to substantiate that they match the governing physique’s definition of a lady,” Breitbart’s Frances Martel studies. “IBA President Umar Kremlev instructed the Russian information company Tass on the time that Lin and Khelif ‘have XY chromosomes,’ the genetic make-up of a human male.

“The Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed Lin and Khelif to compete as a result of it doesn’t use the IBA testing requirements, requiring athletes solely to current their passports and qualifying them to compete as males or girls, relying on how their international locations classify them.”

However with the revelation that the boxer, who was decided to have male XY chromosomes, landed in third place in AP’s feminine athlete of the yr voting, many took to social media to blast the wire service for its inclusion of Khelif.

One of the crucial notable detractors of AP’s alternative is tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who jumped to her X account to proclaim “Wtaf???”

However Navratilova was removed from the one individual to specific outrage over the award standings.

Ladies’s sports activities advocate Riley Gaines additionally blasted the AP’s transfer, calling it “absurd” and alleging that the AP “is aware of” Khelif “is a person.”

Many different social media customers had been equally sickened by the AP’s actions:

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