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Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer at the centre of a gender dispute at the Paris Olympics, has filed a formal legal complaint, citing being the victim of online harassment, her lawyer said on Saturday.

Khelif, who won gold for women’s welterweight on Friday, and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were accused of not being women, causing a heated social media debate.

Khelif’s lawyer Nabil Boudi told Reuters that the complaint was filed on Friday.

According to France24, Boudi, in a statement, said, “The boxer Imane Khelif has decided to begin a new fight, a fight for justice, dignity and honour”. He added that Khelif had filed the complaint for “aggravated online harassment… to Paris prosecutors”.

“The investigation will determine who was behind this misogynist, racist and sexist campaign, but will also have to concern itself with those who fed the online lynching.”

The lawyer maintained that the “iniquitous harassment” Khelif was subjected to would remain “the biggest stain on these Olympic Games”.

“All that is being said about me on social media is immoral. I want to change the minds of people around the world,” Khelif said on Saturday.

Following her win, the gold medalist said victory at the Paris Olympics had “a special taste”.

“I am a woman like any woman,” Khelif said at a news conference following her win.

“I was born a woman and I have lived as a woman but there are enemies to success and they can’t digest my success. That also gives my success a special taste.”

Both Khelif and Lin were disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) from the 2023 World Championships, which said a sex chromosome test had ruled both of them ineligible, Reuters reported.

They are competing in the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stripped the IBA of its status as the sport’s governing body in 2023 and took control of organising boxing in Paris. For this iteration of the Olympics, the committee is applying boxing eligibility rules which were employed at the Rio de Janeiro (2016) and Tokyo (2021) Olympics and do not contain gender testing.

The IOC rejected the results of the IBA-ordered tests on Khelif and Lin as arbitrary and illegitimate, saying there was no reason to conduct them. Khelif, a silver medallist at the 2022 Worlds, said she did not understand the IBA’s actions.

“All that is being said about me on social media is immoral. I want to change the minds of people around the world,” Khelif added.

“From 2018, I competed under the authority of the IBA and they know everything about me. I don’t recognise this IBA. Some of the members hate me and I don’t know why.

“I sent them a message today that my honour is above everything.”

Khelif is the first Algerian woman to win an Olympic boxing gold medal, and the first Algerian boxer to win gold since Hocine Soltani at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.