The combustible flame around Algerian boxer Imane Khelif have been fanned again with Hungarian rival Anna Luca Hamori posting a wild image on social media.
The image was of a young girl wearing boxing gloves, facing a muscled-up beast with horns.
Hamori is about to face Khelif in their next Olympic fight.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today 
She shared the image on her Instagram story before seemingly removing it on Friday evening.
After the fight between Khelif and Italian Angela Carini, Hamori said she did not fear Khelif, who has created an Olympic storm by being granted permission to compete by the International Olympic Committee despite the fact she was disqualified last year due to high levels of testosterone and XY chromosomes..
“If she or he is a man, it will be a bigger victory for me if I win,” Hamori said.
Hamori and Khelif are scheduled to fight later on Saturday (today).
Carini has since issued a full apology to Khelif “and everyone else” after their dramatic women’s 66kg bout sparked what she called a “sad” firestorm.
“All this controversy makes me sad,” she told Italian outlet Gazzetta dello Sport.
“I’m sorry for my opponent, too. If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.”
The International Olympic Committee has defended its decision to allow Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu‑ting (who was also previously banned) to compete.
Lin and Khelif were disqualified from the world championships held last year by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for supposedly failing unspecified gender eligibility tests.
Lin’s and Khelif’s passports say they are female and they have no eligibility issues with the International Olympic Committee, which runs the Olympic boxing tournament in the absence of IBA, banished due to integrity concerns.
Meanwhile, Australia’s trailblazing boxer Tina Rahimi has demanded “proper evidence” from the governing body and holds fears for the mental health of the two boxers caught up in the eligibility storm.
The first female Muslim to box for Australia at the Olympics was bundled out of the 57kg division of the Paris Games on Friday night, spoiling any chance of meeting Lin, on the other side of the draw.
But Rahimi wants to know where is the evidence for the IBA’s gender eligibility ban.
“Obviously men should be participating in men’s sport and women should be participating in women’s sport and I think there’s just been a lot of talk, but there’s no proper evidence that has been provided,” she said.
“Until there’s proper facts then people shouldn’t be really talking about it.
“It’s a really massive toll on people’s mental health and going into a major event like this I think it’s really unnecessary unless there’s proper facts to prove that that is the case.”
Lin, who like Khelif competed at Tokyo’s Games, won her opening Olympic boxing bout on Friday, beating Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan 5-0 and received a hearty cheer from the French crowd.
Lin bowed to the crowd before leaving the ring. On her walk back to the dressing room, she stopped and waved at her cheering fan section, touching her hand to her heart, hugged some of her supporters and didn’t speak to media.
The two-time world champion will face Svetlana Staneva of Bulgaria in the quarter-finals on Sunday, with the winner clinching her first Olympic medal.
Staneva is a 34-year-old amateur boxing veteran who lost a close fight to Lin at the 2023 world championships in India.
The victory was changed to a no-contest by the IBA, which claimed Lin had failed an unspecified gender test.
The IBA has been out of the Olympic movement since 2019 after years of concerns with its governance, financial transparency and administration of competitions.
Lin is the top seed in the women’s 57-kilogram category in Paris, although Olympic seeding is frequently not indicative of a boxer’s medal chances.
Lin has competed in elite-level amateur boxing for 10 years, and Khelif is a six-year veteran. Neither had been sanctioned before last year’s worlds.
– With AP