THE International Olympic Committee (IOC) has provisionally recognised World Boxing as the International Federation of the sport at world level and future Olympic Games.
Amateur boxing at the Olympics was previously governed by the International Boxing Association (IBA), however the IOC removed the IBA’s status as the sports’ governing body, running the sport themselves at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics.
The IOC has today announced that World Boxing has met sufficient criteria to be provisionally recognised as the new governing body of the sport in the future, following doubts that boxing would not be part of the Olympic programme at the Los Angeles games in 2028.
Such criteria were having 78 members from National Federations from the five continents, as well as having 62% of boxers and 58% of medallists from the Paris Olympic Games affiliated to National Federations that are members of World Boxing.
The IOC added that “World Boxing has demonstrated strong willingness and effort in enhancing good governance and implementation, to be compliant with the appropriate standards.”
President of World Boxing Boris van der Vorst released a statement following the IOC’s announcement:
“This is a very significant day for everyone connected with the sport of boxing. Keeping its place at the Olympic Games is critical to the future of our sport from grassroots to the highest echelons of professional boxing. The decision by the IOC takes us one step closer to our objective of seeing boxing restored the Olympic programme.”
“It has taken a huge team effort from a large number of people to get to this point and none of it would be possible without the hard work and commitment of all the National Federations, boxers, coaches, officials and boxing leaders that have worked together to make this possible.”
“Today’s decision by the IOC is an important milestone” he added. “Everyone connected with World Boxing understands that being part of the Olympic movement is a privilege and a responsibility not a right”.
Meanwhile, Chair of World Boxing’s Olympic commission ‘GGG’ Gennadiy Golovkin has welcomed the decision of the IOC but says there is still more work to do.
“Receiving provisional Olympics recognition from the IOC is an important achievement and demonstrates that our sport is on the right path. The decision brings us one step closer to our main goal – preserving boxing at the Olympics.
“There is still a lot to do to achieve all the goals set, so we will not stop here,” said Golovkin.
