As the relationship between the IBA and the IOC disintegrated, the latter was forced to govern boxing for both the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 tournaments. However, that will not be the case at Los Angeles 2028 as there are doubts over the sport’s future at the Olympic Games.
It has been over a year since the IBA was officially removed from the Olympic family and no global organisation has taken its place. The IOC has subsequently made it clear that if a replacement is not found within the next six months, the Los Angeles 2028 programme will not include boxing.
Over the past few decades, the Olympics have produced some of the greatest boxers in history. Names like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya and Lennox Lewis are synonymous with their respective gold medals, which served as springboards for Hall of Fame careers.
Will boxing rise from the canvas and continue to fight at the top of amateur sports competition, or will it be discarded?
Jugo Mobile analyses the state of play and its future inclusion in the Olympic Games.
Will boxing be included in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic programme?
The program for Los Angeles 2028 currently has 36 sports included and boxing is not one of them.
“We would love to see boxing; we want to see boxing on the Los Angeles schedule. It is now up to the boxing community to get organized for the sport and for the athletes,” said IOC spokesman Mark Adams. He said this at a press conference via Reuters.
In April, the IOC made it clear that a new global organisation would have to be in place by early 2025, presumably to give them enough time to get things sorted.
Another governing body called World Boxing has some support from key countries but has not been officially accepted.
“The popularity of boxing in the United States is significant and its ability to engage children of all socioeconomic backgrounds is powerful and important,” said LA28’s executive director. Casey Wasserman via dawn.com
“We have always said that we have to find a way to include boxing in the 2028 Games, but as we sit here today… it is not on our calendar and we do not have a venue for it.”
Why did the IOC remove the IBA from the Olympic Games?
In 2020, Russian sports imam Umar Kremlev was elected president of the IBA. Operations were moved from Switzerland to Russia and the country’s energy giant Gazprom became the organization’s sole sponsor.
When it emerged that the IBA’s debts of more than $20 million had been suddenly written off, the IOC strongly opposed Gazprom’s partnership. The controversy continued when the IBA suspended Ukraine following the Russian invasion in 2022.
These facts, which became public, led to a complete breakdown in the relationship between the IBA and the IOC. The latter took control of the boxing competition in Tokyo 2020 and removed the IBA from governance in the summer of 2023.
Since when has boxing been part of the Olympic Games?
Boxing has been a mainstay of the modern Olympic Games since 1904. Since then, the only Games not to include the sport was Stockholm 1912 because Sweden had a permanent ban on boxing.
By the time the Paris 2024 Olympics conclude, 28 boxing tournaments will have been held in the past 120 years.
