The International Olympic Committee would love to have boxing at the Los Angeles 2028 Games but first needs to see the creation of a new global governing body for the sport, it said on Tuesday.
The IOC stripped the International Boxing Association (IBA) of recognition last year over its failure to implement reforms on governance and finance, and the Olympic body has not included the sport on the LA 2028 programme yet.
“We would love to see boxing, we want to see boxing on the programme in LA. Now it is up to the boxing community to organise themselves for the sport and for the athletes,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams told a press conference.
A new organisation called World Boxing was launched in 2023 and currently has 37 members, still far fewer than the IBA, but is not recognised by the IOC.
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Adams was speaking a day after a shambolic IBA press conference in Paris where the organisation’s President Umar Kremlev, a Russian, attacked the IOC in a long and rambling presentation.
Kremlev, addressing media online, meandered from personal attacks against IOC President Thomas Bach to railing against the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony and defending his own fight against corruption.
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The IOC and IBA have been at loggerheads for days over the participation of two female boxers, Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting at the Games.
The IBA banned them midway through last year’s World Championships following a chromosome test, citing gender ineligibility, but the IOC has allowed them both to compete, saying they are women.
The IBA press conference, which has triggered a protest by Taiwan’s sports administration, was initially organised to provide evidence of the tests conducted on the two boxers but instead caused more confusion.
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“I am not going to comment on the chaotic scenes yesterday,” Adams said. “It clearly demonstrates that the sport of boxing needs a new federation to run boxing.”
“If you ever needed any evidence at all that the IBA is unfit to run boxing just look at the key members of the IBA who took part in that travesty yesterday.”
Relations between the IOC and IBA have been tense for years but soured further following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the IBA run by Kremlev.
The Russian state energy firm Gazprom is its main sponsor as stated on the IBA website despite Kremlev saying last year that the sponsorship had ended.
“The best recruiting sergeant for a new federation was that press conference yesterday,” Adams said. “It will give you an idea why we are in desperate need for a federation to take it forward.”
The IOC has run the boxing competitions without the IBA at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and in Paris but will not do so in Los Angeles.
“We are not a federation and we desperately need a federation to run boxing,” Adams said.
