The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has warned that due to growing unhappiness with the steps the International Boxing Association (IBA) is taking to clean up the sport, it may exclude boxing from the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. This has Indian boxers worried. The feud between the IOC and the IBA continues to intensify with the upcoming Olympics. Boxers from India have competed in three of the last four Olympics and are hoping to finish on the podium in Paris.
However, the controversy surrounding boxing’s inclusion in the Olympics could dash their hopes. The reforms that the world boxing body under Russian president Umar Kremlev has implemented over the past two years have not been satisfactory to the IOC. Which has expressed serious concerns regarding issues related to the IBA’s governance, financial mismanagement, refereeing, and judging.
IOC last year barred boxing from the underlying project of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Furthermore declared it was assuming control over capability for Paris. By setting the interaction under its Team as it accomplished for the Tokyo Olympics. Narender Rana, the men’s coach for India, stated on Sunday, “Boxers are naturally concerned about the developments.”
Even though we make an effort to reassure them that the world body is doing everything in its power, it still causes them anxiety. According to the IOC program, Asian Games — are delayed by China to be held in September-October one year from now. Will be a qualifier for Indian fighters other than two world capability competitions because of happening in 2024. Due to Covid, the Hangzhou Asian Games were postponed last year and remain uncertain.
Lovlina Borgohain had won bronze out of nine Indian boxers who had qualified for Tokyo. The conflict between the IBA and the IOC is not coming to an end. Kremlev stated that boxers would not participate in the Olympics. Without the IBA’s presence at its Congress this month in Abu Dhabi. I want to emphasize that IBA will not be present at the Olympics for any boxer, coach, or national federation. The boxers have asked for this.
IBA’s decision to renew a multimillion-dollar contract with Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom is a major sticking point with IOC. Another is allowing boxers from Russia and its ally Belarus to compete in IBA competitions under their flag despite the IOC’s approval because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The most recent IBA Congress has once again shown that the IBA. Simply cares about preserving its own authority and has no genuine interest in the boxing sport or the athletes.
“The decisions and talks to exclude boxers from the Olympic qualifiers. The Olympic Games cannot be understood in a different sense,” the IOC said in a statement. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) responded to the most recent occurrences by saying it would “have to take all this into consideration when it takes further decisions. Which may have to include canceling boxing for the Olympic Games Paris 2024.”
This article covered the sponsorship extension with Gazprom. The CAS judgment did not result in a new presidential election. The latest IOC attack on boxers, according to a statement released on Saturday by the IBA, was the threat to remove boxing from Paris. The Olympics cannot be used as a political extortion tool against the International Sports Federations because they are a global sporting asset that belongs to athletes of all sports.