After much doubt, boxing to be on the Olympic menu for 2028
IOC executive board's vote for inclusion makes it a formality
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Although for months it looked like boxing would be left off the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic program because of the numerous issues with how amateur boxing has been run, it will remain.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said Monday that the executive board of the IOC has approved boxing to be included in the 2028 Games. It still needs the full IOC to make it official, but once the executive board makes its recommendation support from the full IOC is typically a formality.
Because of numerous issues with the Russian-led International Boxing Association, which had run the Olympic boxing tournament, the IOC oversaw the sport at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games in 2021 and at the 2024 Paris Games, but declined to do it again in 2028 and sought a new organization to take over.
Founded in 2023, World Boxing has steadily picked up support from dozens of Olympic committees from numerous countries in recent months in an effort to keep boxing in the Olympics. It has received enough support and has now been recognized by the IOC and will run the tournament in Los Angeles.
“I am very confident that the session will approve it so that all the boxers of the world then have certainty that they can participate in the Olympic Games L.A. 2028 if their national federation is recognized by World Boxing,” Bach said after the executive board vote at this week’s meeting in Greece.
Boxing has been contested at the Olympics since 1904, making it one of the oldest sports to be part of the so-called modern Olympic Games that began in 1896 in Athens.
Olympic boxing has also launched the professional careers of numerous fighters, including some of the most famous and accomplished boxers of all time — Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield, Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko and Oleksandr Usyk, among many others.
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The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 due to ongoing questions about its finances and the integrity of its officiating and judging at the Olympics and then stripped it of its status in June 2023 for its failure to implement reforms. That led World Boxing, which was founded in April 2023, to step up its efforts to replace the IBA.
World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst was glad to see the organization’s work pay off.
“This is a very significant day for everyone connected with the sport of boxing in the Olympic movement,” he said. “Keeping its place at the Olympic Games is absolutely critical to the future of our sport at every level, from the grassroots to the highest echelons of professional boxing, and this decision by the IOC takes us one step closer to our objective of seeing boxing restored to the Olympic program.”
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Great news and very critical decision for the long term health of the sport.
Great news, the Olympics wouldn't be the same without boxing, hopefully the scoring doesn't let us down.