The controversy over Algerian boxer Imane Khalif couldn’t help but remind me of the great Finnish Nordic skier, Eero Mäntyranta. Mäntyranta dominated the sport. Between 1960 and 1972, he won 7 medals and 3 golds. He was so extraordinary that, in 1964, he won the 15km race by the unprecedented margin of 40 seconds. Nobody before or since has won by such a wide margin. In the center of his hometown of Pello, Finland, there is a statue dedicated to his athletic prowess.
Throughout his career, Mäntyranta was suspected of doping. But he wasn’t cheating. Instead, he had a genetic advantage over other athletes. Scientists, intrigued by his success, studied him and his family. They figured out that he had a genetic variant in his erythropoietin receptor gene that led him to have an unusually high number of red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen. Increasing the level of red blood cells can increase one’s endurance.
Mäntyranta’s story raises important questions about fairness in sport. Why should it be okay for an athlete to have a genetic mutation that raises hemoglobin levels, or to train at high altitudes, but not to take a drug that would have the same effect?
That is why Lance Armstrong gave himself erythropoietin, along with other drugs.
Mäntyranta’s case came to mind because Imane Khalif and many other female track stars are accused not of doping, like Armstrong, but having a genetic difference that allegedly gives them an advantage in their sport.
So, let’s think about Imane’s story as she tells it. Ms. Khalif was born in 1999 to a very poor family in rural Algeria. She was recognized by her parents, doctors, and community as a girl. As she grew up, she loved sports and excelled at them. She played soccer with the boys in her town. The boys bullied her because, in her culture, girls were not supposed to play sports, especially not with boys. As a result of the bullying, Khalif learned to fight. Her fighting skills attracted the attention of a boxing coach in her region, Mohamed Chaoua, who supported and trained her. Her family disapproved at first but eventually supported her aspirations. She competed in many international competitions. Her gender was never questioned until, in 2023, after defeating a Russian boxer, she was forced to undergo some sort of testing. The results of those tests have never been made public and officials of the International Boxing Association, which did the tests, have contradicted themselves about the test results. One thing that everybody agrees upon is that testing is random and idiosyncratic. Not all women (or men) are tested. There is no agreement on what to do with test results.
Why compare Khalif and Mäntyranta? The two stories highlight the complex interaction between genetics and athletic prowess. Some women have higher testosterone levels than others. So men have higher levels than other men. Generally, we don’t test athletes to determine whether they have a genetic advantage. The logic by which Khalif’s allegedly high testosterone level should have disqualified her because it gave her an unfair genetic advantage could also have been used to strip Mäntyranta of his medals. But such tests are only ever applied to women.
One could imagine sporting events in which genetic advantages were eliminated. All players in the NBA would have to be the same height. All sprinters would have to have the ACTN3 variants. Every golfer’s vision would be corrected to 20/10. The question, then, will not be whether certain athletes ought to be disqualified. It will, instead, by whether, in the name of fairness, we will try to eliminate or correct for all natural human variation. We shouldn’t. Ms. Imane Khalif earned her gold medal. She overcame bullies to succeed. She shouldn’t be insulted by them for her success.
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