Boxing, a sport that has been competed in since the ancient Olympics, will be effectively kicked out of the Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board voted on Sunday to recommend that the International Boxing Association (IBA), which has governed amateur boxing around the world, withdraw its recognition.
This means that boxing has effectively been given an exit notice by the IOC. The final decision will be made at an extraordinary IOC Session scheduled for Feb. 22, but it is highly unlikely to be overturned. The Session is merely an endorsement of the Executive Board’s decision.
“The IOC Executive Board has given the IBA multiple opportunities to address the issues in a real and effective way, including a roadmap for 2021 to 2023, but the IBA has failed to do so,” the IOC said in its report. “The situation is so serious that the only conclusion is to expel the IBA in accordance with the Olympic Charter.” 먹튀검증
The final straw for the IBA was the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The IBA, which until then had used the French acronym “AIBA” as its official name, was under fire for referee bias. Furthermore, the organization’s morale suffered a major blow when it was revealed that its interim president, Gafur Rahimov (Uzbekistan), was involved in drug offenses.
The IOC subsequently suspended the IBA’s status as an Olympic organizing International Federation (IF) at its June 2019 Session. Despite this, the IBA failed to meet the reform standards required by the IOC.
To make matters worse, the new president, Umar Kremlev (RUS), took over in 2020. He allowed Russian and Belarusian athletes, who had been banned from international competition following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, to compete, fly their flags, and play their national anthems. Add to that the inclusion of Gazprom, Russia’s largest energy company, as a sponsor, and the IOC decided to cut ties with the IBA altogether.
“We followed the procedures and did not receive a fair evaluation,” Kremped said of the IOC Executive Board’s decision. We will ask a competent court to evaluate it,” he said, hinting at a possible legal challenge at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The IBA’s expulsion does not mean that boxing will not be organized at the Paris 2024 Olympics, which is just around the corner. The IOC will likely take control of the sport, as it did for the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021. However, it’s unlikely we’ll see boxing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.