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Ajax Keeper Hailed as Hero After 'Crazy' Shoot-Out

Ajax's Dutch goalkeeper #22 Remko Pasveer (C) saves a penalty during the penalty shootout at the end of the UEFA Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round second leg football match between Ajax FC and Panathinaikos FC at the Johan Cruyff Arena, in Amsterdam, on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Olaf Kraak / ANP / AFP)
Ajax's Dutch goalkeeper #22 Remko Pasveer (C) saves a penalty during the penalty shootout at the end of the UEFA Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round second leg football match between Ajax FC and Panathinaikos FC at the Johan Cruyff Arena, in Amsterdam, on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Olaf Kraak / ANP / AFP)
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Ajax Keeper Hailed as Hero After 'Crazy' Shoot-Out

Ajax's Dutch goalkeeper #22 Remko Pasveer (C) saves a penalty during the penalty shootout at the end of the UEFA Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round second leg football match between Ajax FC and Panathinaikos FC at the Johan Cruyff Arena, in Amsterdam, on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Olaf Kraak / ANP / AFP)
Ajax's Dutch goalkeeper #22 Remko Pasveer (C) saves a penalty during the penalty shootout at the end of the UEFA Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round second leg football match between Ajax FC and Panathinaikos FC at the Johan Cruyff Arena, in Amsterdam, on August 15, 2024. (Photo by Olaf Kraak / ANP / AFP)

The 40-year-old goalkeeper of Ajax was being hailed as a hero Friday after the Dutch giants won a "crazy" penalty shoot-out 13-12 to advance into the Europa League play-offs.
Remko Pasveer saved five penalties and scored one himself to squeeze Ajax past Greek side Panathinaikos in one of the longest penalty shoot-outs in history, said AFP.
The total of 34 penalty kicks was the most taken in a UEFA competition, beating a game between the Netherlands and England in the under-21 European Championship, where 32 were taken.
It was a "bizarre" shoot-out, Pasveer said after the match. "So many penalties and every time someone missed, the other team missed."
"This was crazy," said Ajax coach Francesco Farioli. "But it was also a great evening. We are now definitely playing in Europe."
He joked that Pasveer could expect to be immortalized in the corridors of the Ajax stadium where pictures of some of the greats of Dutch football hang.
"Remko asked why there was never a picture of a goalkeeper who has kept a clean sheet. I told him he should maybe play a bit better," quipped the coach.
"But now I think we should quickly hang up a picture of him."
It was a welcome win for Ajax, who are trying to bounce back from one of the most disappointing seasons in their illustrious history.
At one point the 36-time Dutch champions were bottom of the Eredivisie and suffered humiliating losses to rivals Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven.
With new coach Farioli at the helm, the Amsterdam-based club is hoping for a turnaround in fortunes and won their first Eredivisie match 1-0 against Heerenveen on Sunday.
The longest shoot-out in history was the 56 kicks taken in the Israeli domestic competition between SC Dimona and Shimshon Tel Aviv.

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France Launches Probe over Alleged Cyberbullying of Algerian Olympic Boxer Khelif

Gold medalist Algeria's Imane Khelif poses on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women's 66kg final boxing category during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Roland-Garros Stadium, in Paris on August 9, 2024. (AFP)
Gold medalist Algeria's Imane Khelif poses on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women's 66kg final boxing category during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Roland-Garros Stadium, in Paris on August 9, 2024. (AFP)
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France Launches Probe over Alleged Cyberbullying of Algerian Olympic Boxer Khelif

Gold medalist Algeria's Imane Khelif poses on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women's 66kg final boxing category during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Roland-Garros Stadium, in Paris on August 9, 2024. (AFP)
Gold medalist Algeria's Imane Khelif poses on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women's 66kg final boxing category during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Roland-Garros Stadium, in Paris on August 9, 2024. (AFP)

France has launched a cyberbullying probe following a complaint by Algerian Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif, who was at the center of a gender controversy at the Paris Olympic Games, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

The controversy has rapidly become a hot-button issue outside the ring, with politicians and celebrities including Donald Trump and Elon Musk weighing in.

The investigation was opened Tuesday into "cyber-harassment" following the high-profile gender row at the Games, the Paris public prosecutor's office told AFP.

The athlete's lawyer Nabil Boudi said last week that Khelif, 25, had filed a complaint for online harassment, calling it a "fight for justice."

"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," he said at the time.

The Central Office for Combating Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes has been tasked with the investigation.

- Musk and Trump -

According to US magazine Variety, billionaire entrepreneur Musk and Harry Potter author JK Rowling have been named in the complaint.

Former US President Trump, who is the Republican party's nominee in the 2024 presidential race, would also be part of the investigation, Variety said, citing the lawyer.

Khelif won the women's 66kg final against China's Yang Liu in a unanimous points decision, having been the focus of intense scrutiny in the French capital during the Olympics.

Together with Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, who won the 57kg women's final, Khelif was disqualified from last year's world championships after they failed gender eligibility testing.

However, they were cleared to compete in Paris, setting the stage for one of the biggest controversies of the Games.

The row in Paris erupted after Khelif won her bout against Italy's Angela Carini in just 46 seconds with two strong punches to the Italian's nose.

Trump said he would "keep men out of women's sports" and his running mate JD Vance described the bout as a "grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match".

Rowling also weighed in, saying on X that the Paris Olympics would be "forever tarnished by the brutal injustice done to Carini".

The International Boxing Association's Russian president and Kremlin-linked oligarch, Umar Kremlev, has targeted both athletes, claiming that Khelif and Lin had undergone "genetic testing that shows that these are men".

The IBA were responsible for the world championships in 2023 that Lin and Khelif were thrown out of, but the IOC cleared them to box in Paris.

Khelif said she is "a woman like any other".

"I was born a woman, lived a woman and competed as a woman," she told reporters about her eligibility.

"They hate me and I don't know why," she said of the IBA.

- 'Defamation campaign' -

Russia's team has been banned from the Paris Olympics over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday, Khelif received a hero's welcome at Algiers airport, with crowds cheering the boxer with chants of "Tahia Imane" (Long live Imane).

An editorial in government daily El Moudjahid praised Khelif.

"Imane's victory is also a victory for the oppressed and the excluded, but above all it is a victory for the law, which for too long has been trampled by the logic of the powerful, who are greedy for domination and adept at double-standard policies."

Asked if the International Olympic Committee was prepared to consider reviewing the gender issue, its president Thomas Bach has said: "If someone is presenting us a scientifically solid system how to identify men and women, we are the first ones to do it.

"But what is not possible that someone is saying this is not a woman just by looking at somebody or by falling prey to a defamation campaign by a not credible organization with highly political interest."