Boxing has been officially reinstated to the Olympic programme for Los Angeles 2028 after the member states of the IOC voted unanimously in favour of its inclusion.
The vote took place at the IOC’s 144th session, which took place in Athens Thursday morning, and when IOC president Thomas Bach asked for a show of hands from all in favour of boxing taking place at LA everyone duly obliged. Nobody voted no and there were no abstentions.
“Thank you for this approval for having boxing back in the Olympic programme,” a smiling President Bach said. “We can now look forward to a great Olympic boxing tournament.”
The sport had faced a very uncertain Olympic future due to the IOC’s concerns over the previous governing body IBA, who were then known as AIBA.
The IOC first suspended AIBA back in 2019 citing problems with financial transparency, governance and ethical issues before they finally stripped them of their Olympic recognition in 2023. It was the first time in IOC history that they had taken such action against a governing federation.
As such, an IOC ‘special taskforce’ has been in charge of running the boxing competitions at the last two Olympics, in Tokyo in 2020 and Paris in 2024, but the IOC made it clear that the same would not happen in 2028.
Boxing was therefore not on the initial programme for Los Angeles 2028 but after the formation of World Boxing, a new international federation with the goal to ensure boxing remained an Olympic sport, a new option for the IOC emerged.
Since their formation, 88 different national federations across five continents have joined up with World Boxing, comprising more than 500,000 boxers. And, as reported by The Ring, in late February the IOC granted World Boxing ‘provisional recognition’ which was the clearest indication yet that boxing could yet return in time for LA.
Then, on Monday, President Bach revealed that the executive board he chairs approved the inclusion of boxing in 2028, pending a positive vote at a full IOC session.
And on Thursday that decision was finally rubber-stamped by the unanimous vote as former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, the chairman of the World Boxing Olympic Commission, and World Boxing President Boris van der Vorst looked on in Athens.
“It’s not often that proposals of programme commissions were voted on unanimously but this commission is breaking record after record in this regard,” President Bach said.
“I would like to congratulate World Boxing, the new federation… Welcome and congratulations. Thank you, now back to work.”
Credit: Ring Magazine
