After years of doubt about the continuous inclusion of boxing at the Olympic Games, the sport received another respite and will be presented at the 2028 games in Los Angeles.
The outgoing president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, said on Monday that the Executive Board had approved, including boxing in the 2028 program.
I still needed a complete COI session to sign the decision this week, but that was considered a formality.
Due to the ongoing governance problems, the IOC took the unusual step to organize the boxing tournaments in the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games and the Paris Games in 2024 after relations with the International Boxing Association (IBA) led by Russia broke.
The IOC said that it would not do the same in Los Angeles, urging the National Boxing Federations to find a new governing body in time for 2028.
The persistent doubt about the presence of boxing in the Games was alarming for Australia, with Tokyo and Paris enormously successful for Australian combatants.
Harry Garside won the light bronze in Tokyo, the first Australian medal in the games from Grahame Cheney in 1988.
Then, the Pluma Senior pen and the medium weight Caitlin Parker won the bronze in Paris, the first time Australia claimed multiple boxing medals in the same games since 1960.
In Paris, both Garside and Parker begged the IOC to find a solution to boxing problems.
“Boxing is historically the sport of a poor man … they are the countries that come from these really difficult areas in the world, they are the ones that come and win gold medals,” said Garside.
“I think removing that from people like that, it is a crime and I would hate to see it.
“Boxing deserves to be in the Olympic Games. He has saved the lives of many people, and I have seen him save the lives of many people.“
Parker, the first Australian female boxing medalist and a self -proclaimed obsessive Olimpids, said that taking out the sport from the games just when the female boxing was increasing would be disappointing.
“It has been such a massive part of my life, the Olympic Games,” Parker said in Paris.
“I’ve always been so obsessed with that.
“I am sad to think that some children who admire us, or children who are starting this sport that have the same type of sleep, which will be destroyed by them.
“That destroys me absolutely. And especially women … we are beginning to create history in this sport.”
Charlie Senior and Caitlin Parker enjoyed the best performance of Australian Olympic boxing since 1960. (Getty Images: Pascal Le Segretain)
Last month, the IOC recognized a new governing body, World Boxing, which already had more than 60 percent of the boxers who competed in Paris affiliated with it, including more than 50 percent of medalists.
“I am very sure that the session will approve it so that all the boxers in the world are certain that they can participate in the 2028 Olympic Games, if their national federation is recognized by world boxing,” Bach said.
The IOC suspended the IBR in 2019 after long -standing disputes about governance, its finances and the integrity of the fighting and the trial.
He gave the rare step of banishing the Iba of the Olympic movement completely in 2023.
Shortly after, some members broke down to form world boxing.
Since he was suspended, the IBA and its Russian president Umar Kremlev have continued fighting with the IOC, particularly on the eligibility rules for female boxing at the Paris Olympic Games.
The eligibility question was bought in relief in Paris for the cases of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, who, according to the IBA, had failed gender eligibility tests without providing any evidence.
He was said last month that he planned to file criminal complaints against the IOC in the United States, France and Switzerland.
World Boxing is expected to work to review and update rules on female elbbowing that must be in place before Olympic qualification events begin, probably next year.
“This is a very significant and important decision for Olympic boxing and takes the sport one step closer to being restored to the Olympic program,” said World Boxing president, Boris Van Vortst, in a statement on Monday.
“I have no doubt that it will be received very positively by all those connected to boxing, at all levels of the world, which includes the critical importance for the future of boxing sport that continues to be part of the Olympic movement.”
American and British boxing officials were among the founders of World Boxing in 2023, and the separatist body has added countries with key influence on Olympic circles, including India and, last week, China.
The new boxing body now has a membership of more than 80 national federations, although Russia, Spain and many African countries are among those that have not yet registered.
AP/ABC
