Oliver Brown doesn’t mince words:

The smouldering scandal of these Paris Games has reached the most explosive possible conclusion, with a biologically male boxer winning an Olympic gold medal as a female. Imane Khelif, the 25-year-old Algerian whose DNA tests have shown the male pattern of XY chromosomes, has swept all the way to the women’s welterweight title after dismantling four successive opponents in four utterly one-sided contests. The outcome of which the International Olympic Committee had for so long been warned – that an overwhelming focus on inclusion could remove fair sport for women – has finally come to pass.

And it’s not even “inclusion” given that women are excluded from winning in their own damn sport.

It has been the starkest illustration of a failure of governance at the highest level of global sport. By allowing biological males to fight as women through pure self-ID, the IOC have caused irreparable damage to their claims of protecting the sanctity and integrity of the female category. Khelif celebrated extravagantly by dancing on the spot as the unanimous decision was announced, before being swept out of the ring on the shoulders of the Algerian support staff.

We’re left with a sullen bitter alienated rage at the system-wide indifference to women.

For one night only, the Bois de Boulogne might as well have been downtown Algiers. Khelif’s compatriots had carpeted every tier of Court Philippe-Chatrier with their national flag, all to express solidarity with a boxer they believed had been unfairly traduced. The atmosphere was so highly charged that where Yang Liu was roundly booed when introduced, Khelif received the type of rapturous reception normally accorded a pop star. “Imane, Imane,” they chanted until the building shook.

The woman Khelif was about to punch and steal a gold medal from was booed when she was introduced. Because what, it’s unfair to be an actual woman competing in women’s boxing?

The fight assumed a now-familiar pattern, with Khelif peppering Yang courtesy of a clear advantage in reach and punching power. Outclassed in the first, Yang staggered back under the force of one juddering blow in the second and could do nothing in the third to claw back in the deficit. Khelif could afford to showboat, raising her fists in salute, knowing the gold had been grasped. How astonishing that it should ever have come to this.

Khelif was jubilant atop the medal rostrum, barely able to conceal the emotion as the Algerian national anthem played. The crowd, almost uniformly in support, sang in unison. But the strength of goodwill inside this arena scarcely hinted at the backlash this story has unleashed beyond.

Backlash and profound bitterness.

It is 11 days since the IOC were first alerted to how fast and loose they were playing with women’s safety by allowing male advantage – the increased shoulder strength, the larger biceps, the 162 per cent difference in punching force – to play out in a sport of such intrinsic danger. And still they have allowed Khelif to march unimpeded to the ultimate prize.

They’re happy with both the unfairness and the danger.

Bach, who has argued that passport status should be taken as evidence of womanhood, said: “This is not as easy as some in this cultural war may now want to portray it. If somebody is presenting us with a scientifically solid system on how to identify men and women, we will be the first ones to do it. We do not like this uncertainty. What is not possible is someone saying, ‘This is not a woman’ just by looking at somebody, or by falling prey to a defamation campaign by a not-credible organisation with highly political interests.”

So a passport is rock solid but knowing a man when we see one is not possible.

Bitter bitter herbs.