Boxing could feature in 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after IOC gives provisional recognition to new governing body

Boxing could feature in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after all with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) provisionally recognising World Boxing on Wednesday to oversee the sport in future editions of the world’s biggest sporting event.

The IOC has severed links with the International Boxing Association (IBA), the long-standing ruling body of amateur boxing, over financial, governance and ethical concerns and stepped in to organise the sport at last year’s Paris Olympics.

The IBA is chaired by the Kremlin-linked Russian Umar Kremlev.

Boxing is not currently part of the programme for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and IOC president Thomas Bach had warned that boxing’s national federations needed to find a new and “reliable” international partner if it wanted to be included.

In a statement recognising World Boxing as the sport’s amateur federation, the IOC said the body “has demonstrated strong willingness and effort in enhancing good governance and implementation, to be compliant with the appropriate standards”.

‘An important milestone’, says World Boxing

World Boxing, founded in 2023 and which has 78 members led by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and Brazil, hailed the IOC’s decision as “an important milestone”.

“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 programme,” World Boxing’s president Boris van der Vorst said.

Kazakhstan’s former two-time unified world middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin heads World Boxing’s Olympic Commission and in that role has been liaising closely with the IOC.

“Receiving provisional Olympic recognition from the IOC is an important achievement and demonstrates that our sport is on the right path,” said Golovkin, the silver medallist from the 2004 Athens Games.

Aside from removing the status of the IBA, the IOC clashed with the federation during Paris 2024 over the participation of two female boxers, Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting.

The IBA banned the fighters during the 2023 World Championships following a chromosome test, citing gender ineligibility issues, but the IOC allowed them to compete in Paris and both won gold medals.

With AFP inputs