CHENNAI: IN a significant development for boxing and its survival in the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday gave provisional recognition to World Boxing. This may help boxing’s path back in the Olympics programme at LA.
The IOC said: “the Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee provisionally recognised WB as the International Federation (IF) within the Olympic Movement governing the sport of boxing at world level, during a remote meeting held today”.
When the WB was launched in April 2023 with the objective of ensuring the sport is part of the Olympics in Paris and beyond, they had hoped to get as many countries affiliated with them but the path was not easy. It started with the Common Cause Alliance of nine nations — the Netherlands, US, Ireland, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Canada, Philippines and Ireland.
The WB welcomed the decision and its president Boris van der Vorst said that this was a “significant step for everyone connected with the sport of boxing in the Olympic Movement. 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.”
While speaking to this daily during the Paris Olympics, he said that there were positive vibes and by the end of the Games they would be able to get the support of 50 national federations. On February 18 this year, the membership of national federations had gone up to 78 (more than half).
The IOC added: “… WB is composed of 78 National Federations from the five continents; and four continental confederations are already established” and the federation has given evidence that “62 per cent of the boxers and 58 per cent of the boxing medallists at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 are affiliated to National Federations that are members of World Boxing.”
The IOC also agrees that WB “applies the sports integrity process implemented during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 by the Paris Boxing Unit, including with independent oversight.”
