The opponent was eventually defeated and had a gold medal around her neck, but Imane Khelif was not done with the punches.

The Algerian at the centre of the gender controversy, whose questions will only grow louder as she completes her journey to Paris for Olympic glory, entered the post-fight press conference in high spirits. There was no ducking or ducking, just more punches, this time aimed at the criticism that she should not be here, fighting women, after failing a gender test last year. Khelif, as she has done so successfully over the past two weeks, took aim and did not miss. The 25-year-old was not done with it. ‘Of course there are enemies of success,’ she added. ‘That gives my success a special flavour because of these attacks.’

Going into this welterweight final against China’s Yang Liu, Khelif had won 12 straight. ‘I’m absolutely qualified,’ she said. ‘I’m a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I live a woman, I fight a woman – there’s no doubt about it.’ The left was hard, the right was brutal. She kept pushing her opponent back, her legs pushing in an almost cartoonish way.

So many pinpoint shots to the nose. There was power but also precision. Khelif had never lost a round before. She was in no danger of doing so here in front of a crowd so biased that it booed Liu into the ring. Five judges and five identical scorecards. Again, the verdict was unanimous. Nothing else.

Those on the other side of a polarising debate, full of opinions but lacking facts, will use her victory as further evidence that something is wrong. Officials from the shadowy Russian-led IBA were right to exclude her from last year’s World Championships. The IOC, which is at war with the IBA and is now threatening to remove boxing from its programme, needs to do more than check what is on someone’s passport before allowing them to compete in the women’s category. Khelif, who received a call from the country’s president, also had a political message. ‘I want to tell the world that they should commit to the Olympic principles and they should not bully people,’ she said.

This is the message of the Olympics. I hope people stop bullying. We come to the Olympics to perform as athletes, with our families. I hope we don’t see any similar attacks in the future. She may not get her wish. Minutes after the final bell, tennis legend Martina Navratilova chimed in, tweeting ‘shame on you, IOC’ and ‘thanks for nothing’. That gold medal won’t be the end of the matter, not even this weekend.