The International Olympic Committee (IOC) raised this Thursday the possibility that the boxing be excluded from the program of the Paris 2024 games, stating that its world body has shown “no real interest” in this sport, nor in its athletes.
The International Boxing Association (IBA) was stripped of its participation in the Olympic Games of Tokyo 2020 and boxing does not appear in the initial program of Los Angeles 2028, pending the reforms demanded by the IOC, recalls the office of the Reuter agency reviewed through the digital portal Hit.
The IOC is threatening to remove boxing from the 2024 Paris Olympic games over governance issues.
It’s worth nothing that the IOC is not including boxing in the LA 2028 games. pic.twitter.com/Nn1Acw2BM8
— Sporting News Boxing (@sn_fights) December 23, 2022
The IOC is organizing qualification for the Olympic boxing tournament in Paris, but has said concerns about the IBA mean they will make new decisions that “could include canceling boxing for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”
An IOC spokesperson stated that “the recent IBA congress has demonstrated, once again, that the IBA has no real interest in the sport of boxing and boxers, but is only interested in its own power.”
“The decisions and discussions to keep boxers out of the Olympic qualifiers and the Olympic games cannot be understood any other way,” the source added.
According to the outlet, the IBA is led by the Russian Umar Kremlev with the backing of the Russian energy company Gazprom. The IOC spokesman said the recent extension of the IBA’s agreement with Gazprom shows that the body “is not willing to understand the real issues.”
“The extension of the contract with Gazprom as the sole main sponsor of the IBA reinforces the concerns that the IOC has expressed since 2019 time and again,” added the spokesman quoted by Reuters. “This announcement confirms that the IBA will continue to depend on a company largely controlled by the Russian government,” he noted.
An extraordinary IBA congress in September voted against holding a new election, allowing Kremlev to remain president after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that Dutch candidate Boris van der Vorst was wrongly barred from running.
The spokesman said the IOC’s concerns included the management of the CAS decision.
“The IOC will have to take all this into account when making new decisions, which may after these latest events have to include the cancellation of boxing for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”
This month the IBA accused Olympic organizers of “persecution” in response to their suspension over governance and funding issues.
This situation directly affects sports in Cuba, since boxing has been the main contributor of the title to the delegations of the Island in the editions of the Olympic Games held from Munich 1972 to date.
The president of the International Boxing Association visits Cuba
According to statistics, Cuban boxers have won a total of 78 Olympic medals, of which 41 are gold, 19 silver and 18 other bronze medals. In that vintage, the performances of the legendary Teofilo Stevenson and Félix Savón stand out, who each won three crowns.
President Kremlev made a recent visit to Havana in which he was at the prestigious Cuban boxing school and promised a significant donation of equipment for the practice of this sport in the country.
In addition, he exchanged with sports authorities and was received by President Miguel Díaz-Canel, to whom he explained his intentions to create an international boxing training center in Cuba.
