DPA
Pylos (Greece)
Boxing was on Thursday formally included into 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.
The Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) unanimously approved an according proposal from the IOC executive board.
“We can look forward to a great Olympic boxing tournament in LA,” IOC president Thomas Bach said.
The IOC ran boxing itself at 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 programme if a new partner was found.
It provisionally recognized newly-formed World Boxing last month.
National federations must be members of World Boxing to be eligible to qualify for and compete in LA.
Founded in 2023, World Boxing now has 88 members, Karl Stoss from the IOC programme commission said, including major countries in the sport like the United States, Britain, China and Turkey.
Stoss said World Boxing represents 69% of boxers worldwide and 73% of the medal winners from Paris 2024.
World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst was present for the vote, and said afterwards: “I feel very excited about this decision which acknowledges the hard effort we did as a team.
“It is a significant milestone, and the real work now starts for us.”
Van der Vorst added that they have set up a commission to review gender eligibility criteria and that he expects a result “in the near future” in the wake of a big Paris Games controversy on the issue.
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 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.
“For us it is important to have fair and safe competitions. That will be paramount,” Van der Vorst said.
