IOC Approves New Boxing Qualification System for 2024 Paris Olympics

Make regional events like the Asian Games, Pan American Games and European Games as qualification events.

The IOC Executive Board held a meeting at Lausanne on Thursday. 

(Photo: IANS)

The Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved a new boxing qualification system for the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024, making the regional multi-sports events like the Asian Games, Pan American Games, European Games as qualification events.

Due to various concerns raised by IOC, boxing has not been currently included in the sports programme for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028.

After stripping the International Boxing Association (IBA) of the right to host boxing qualification events and competitions at Paris 2024, the IOC Executive Board (EB) in its meeting on Thursday approved a new qualification model.

"Designed by the IOC in close collaboration with boxing experts, the new qualification system is based on direct qualification through selected competitions, including the use of National Olympic Committee (NOC) regional multisport events as Olympic boxing qualification tournaments," the ICO said in an online press conference after the EB meeting on Thursday.

As the qualification events will be part of the multi-sport event, "the responsibility for the boxing competitions in the events will therefore not lie with the IBA, and alternative arrangements will be put in place with the respective event organisers", the IOC said.

For the respective regions, the IOC has decided that the Pan Pan-American Games to be held in Santiago in 2023, the European Games at Krakow, Poland in 2023, the Pacific Games at Honiara (2023), the Asian Games at Hangzhou, China in 2023 will be qualifying events for Paris 2024 boxing competitions.

A similar multisport event for Africa will be confirmed after consultation with ANOCA, the IOC said on Thursday.

After the continental phase of quota place allocation, two world qualification tournaments are planned to be held in 2024, giving the boxers from all regions a chance to try and secure their berths in Paris.

The IOC EB said it received an updated report regarding the progress made by the IBA regarding solving the concerns raised by the IOC when stripping it of its right to host the Paris 2024 competition.

It said that though some issues have been resolved, major concerns regarding governance, financial model and judging and referring at international competitions remain.

It said instead of putting in place a competent administrative office in Lausanne, IBA seems to have stripped its further of its effectiveness and is concentrating powers in the presidential office in Moscow.

It said concerns regarding IBA's financial dependence on a State-owned Russian oil major are still valid and the boxing's international federation has been unable to find new sponsors.

"The IOC EB today received a report on the issues related to competition management and refereeing and judging processes highlighted by independent experts during the boxing competition at the recent Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.”

"It also noted that no clear efforts have been made by the IBA to respect and fully implement the roadmap set out by the IOC EB in December 2021 with regard to the IBA's governance," the IOC said in a release.

Thus, suspension of IBA will continue and the IOC will soon send a letter to IBA informing it of the IOC's ongoing grave concern. This letter will be shared with the NOCs and national boxing federations.