OLYMPIC GAMES | BOXING
Who is Yang Liu, Imane Khelif’s rival in the Paris 2024 boxing final? Weight, height, career stats...
Here’s all you need to know on the Chinese boxer looking for Olympic gold.
Many of the headlines have had the name of Imane Khelif in bold, underlined and in italics, both defending and attacking her, but we should not forget that the fight - the battle for gold in the women’s welterweight category - is far from a forgone conclusion.
Follow live the action between Imane Khelif and Yang Liu, boxing final
Yang Liu, of China, is in the form of her life: she won gold at the 2023 World Championships (from which Khelif was disqualified) as well as the Asian Games. In the women’s 66kg semifinals, she overcame a strong opponent, Taiwan’s Chen Nien-chin, on points.
What is Yang Liu’s boxing record?
The Chinese southpaw, turned 32 on May 20. She is an experienced fighter who started her amateur career in 2015 - since then she has had 32 fights.
Yang Liu has a record of 25 wins and has lost a total of 7, with the majority of them going the distance and being won on points instead of knockouts.
Standing at 1.78/5′10′', Liu competes in the welterweight category, which puts her in between 60-66kg.
Paris 2024:
Her opponent, Imane Khelif, has seen her name in the headlines as her participation in the Olympic Games has been surrounded by controversy. The boxer has been falsely accused of being everything from masculine to transgender to an outright male after breezing past Italy’s Angela Carini in the quarterfinals.
Khelif will take on Yang Liu is on Friday 9 August at Roland Garros, Paris. The gold medal fight is scheduled for 10:51pm local time (4:51pm ET). The session includes four fights and the women’s bout comes after the men’s heavyweight gold medal fight between Azerbaijan’s Loren Berto Alfonso Dominguez and Uzbekistan’s Lazizbek Mullojonov.