DPA
Berlin
Boxing is set to be part of the programme of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles after a long dispute and the provisional recognition of a new governing body for the sport.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said on Monday that the executive board decided on an according recommendation to the IOC Session which convenes later this week.
The approval is considered a formality.
The IOC ran boxing itself at the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 in connection with a long dispute with the International Boxing Association (IBA) over issues including judging, governance, finances and its ties with Russia.
It first suspended IBA and then kicked it out of the Olympic Movement in 2023.
The IOC said that boxing would only be on the 2028 if a new partner was found. It provisionally recognized newly-formed World Boxing last month, after which “we were able to take this decision,” Bach said.
“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 in LA if their national federation is recognised by World Boxing.”,” Bach said.
Founded in 2023, World Boxing says it now has 84 members, including China, Britain and the United States. Not among the members are Cuba, Russia and many African nations. The IOC said that boxers are eligible for 2028 if their national federation is a World Boxing member by the time Olympic qualifying tournaments start.
World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst welcomed the IOC decision in a statement.
World Boxing is expected to update its gender eligibility rules in time for the qualifiers after a big Paris Games controversy.
Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting of Taiwan won gold - a year after being disqualified from the world championships by the IBA for allegedly failing gender eligibility tests which were never made public.
Following an executive order from new United States President Donald Trump to ban transgender athletes from women’s sport, the IBA said that they would file criminal complaints against the IOC in the United States, France and Switzerland.
The IOC has insisted that Khelif and Lin were born and identify as women and thus eligible for Paris, and that they are not transgender athletes.
Khelif for her part has also threatened legal action against the IBA, if necessary.
