THE future of amateur boxing in the Olympic Games looks set to be decided in March.
Boris van der Voorst, the President of World Boxing, made the revelation when addressing the WBC Convention in Hamburg to report on the progress the organisation has made since founding in April, 2023.
World Boxing was set up to keep boxing in the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee left the sport off the list for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
That followed their withdrawal of the International Boxing Association’s authority to run Olympic qualifying events following investigations.
Van der Voorst said: “We now have almost 60 National Federations approved by the Board across five continents and we aim to have at least 75 by March next year.
“During the IOC meeting in March we will discuss the reinstatement of boxing in the Olympic Games.
“We have to meet several requirements, such as global commitment, to demonstrate that we are a stable organisation capable of hosting high quality competitions. We are working tirelessly, day and night, to achieve this goal.”
Plans announced for 2025 include a new World Championship that will be held in Liverpool in September as World Boxing look to build on the progress they made in 2024.
World Boxing staged a number of events around the world last year, including the World Boxing Cup that started and then reached its climax at the English Institute of Sport.
World Boxing Cup events were also held in America and Mongolia in 2024 with the finals in November bringing more than 120 boxers from more than 200 countries to Sheffield.
The first World Boxing Cup event, held in Sheffield in January, helped Great Britain coaches decide who to send to the final Olympic qualifier in Italy in March.
Patrick Brown (heavyweight) and Lewis Richardson (light-middleweight) both impressed in Sheffield, were picked to go to Lombardy and qualified for the Paris Olympics.
Richardson came back from France with a bronze medal after a chaotic Olympics that caused worldwide headlines for the wrong reasons.
Paris was the Olympics boxing really didn’t need.
The fear was that with the sport’s Olympic future at stake, controversial decisions might shake the sport’s credibility.
What happened was much worse.
For many, the Paris Olympics will be remembered for the participation of Imane Khelif and Yu-Ting Lin after they were both disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Championship, ran by IBA.
The storm started after Angel Carini’s 46-second surrender to Khelif in their last-16 welterweight clash and subsequent interviews.
Donald Trump was among those who commentated on the row and IBA called a press conference in Paris city centre during a rest day at the boxing that was bizarre.
The BBC walked out as IBA President Umar Kremlev hurled insults at the IOC from a screen and the conference was effectively brought to an end by the appearance of one of Khelif’s teammates who started waving an Algerian flag and gave interviews supporting her.
Seasoned journalists said they had never experienced such a chaotic event as the IBA set out to undermine the IOC.
World Boxing have been busy since the Olympics ended in August. Events held include the inaugural World Under-19 Championship held in Colorado where Dan Pitt became only the second Welsh boxer to win a world championship, after Lauren Price.
That was the first global event run by World Boxing.
Van der Voorst says he is optimistic World Boxing have made sufficient strides to convince the IOC they are capable of running Olympic qualifying events and the Games themselves in Los Angeles.
He said: “We’ve already held several international competitions on different continents. Now we are in official talks with the IOC for provisional recognition and I am really confident that we will get the authority to ensure that boxing is in the 2028 Olympic Games.”
