A final opponent had been dismantled and there was a gold medal around her neck, but Imane Khelif was not done throwing punches. 

The Algerian at the centre of a gender row, over whom questions will now grow louder after she completed a Parisian stroll to Olympics glory, came into the post-fight press conference swinging. 

Here, there was no ducking or dodging, only more powerful blows, this time raining down on the critics who say she should not have been here, fighting against women, after failing a sex test last year.

It took two minutes for the inevitable to be asked. What was her message to the haters? Khelif, as she has done so successfully over the last fortnight, took aim and did not miss. 

'I am fully qualified,' she said. 'I am a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived as a woman, I competed as woman - there is no doubt.'

The 25-year-old was not done there. 'There are enemies of success of course,' she added. 'That gives my success a special taste because of these attacks.'

Coming into this welterweight final against China's hapless Yang Liu, Khelif had won 12 fights in a row. There was to be no unlucky 13. What we saw was familiar. 

Rangy left jab, brutal right hand. Time and time again she rocked her opponent backwards, legs propelling in almost cartoon-esque fashion. 

Multiple clean shots to the centre of the nose. There was power but there was also accuracy. Khelif had not lost a round previously. She was in no danger of doing so here in front of a crowd so partisan it booed Liu into the ring. Five judges and five identical scorecards. Once again, the verdict was unanimous. Not much else is.

Those on the other side of a polarised argument big on opinion but still short on facts, will use her triumph as more evidence that something is amiss. That officials from the murky, Russian-led IBA were right to turf her out of last year's World Championships. That the IOC, at war with the IBA and currently threatening to remove boxing from the programme, need to check more than what it says on someone's passport before letting them fight in the female category.