For so, so many people all around the world, the very notion that boxing may one day, and one day soon, be wiped off the roster as far as the super-prestigious, yes indeed, life-changing Olympic Games are concerned, is a terrifying one. But it’s true – boxing could become a sport no longer featured at the Olympics.
We’ve heard talk to this effect recently, with the IBA (International Boxing Association) losing their recognition by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in June of this year. The decision is being appealed as we speak. But boxing, which has been a huge part of the Olympic Games since 1920, is a sport that IOC president Thomas Bach wants to see remain as part of the Olympic program.
For now, boxing will stay where it is as far as the Olympic go, with boxing to feature in Paris, France in 2024. But after that……who knows? For now, boxing at 2028 in Los Angeles is “on hold.”
“We want boxing on the program. We have no problem, with boxing or boxers – we have a problem with the governing body,” Bach said to the media a while back.
The “problem” Wach and his colleagues have with the governing body (the IBA) is down to the concerns regarding the IBA’s officiating, their finances and ability to govern suitably. There have been suggestions of corruption in some Olympic boxing matches.
But again, for so many people, the idea of boxing being wiped from the Olympics is a terrible one. Recently, Irish boxing legend Barry McGuigan, writing in his regular column for The Mirror, wrote how boxing being removed from the Olympic schedule would be “a travesty.”
“The fate of the sport as an Olympic event is to be decided at the 141st session of the general assembly, which begins in Mumbai on Sunday (October 15),” McGuigan wrote. “Concerns over unreliable judging, financial irregularities and corruption led to the IOC to threaten exclusion unless the governing body, the IBA, introduced reforms. The refusal of the IBA to act led to its expulsion from the Olympic movement and left boxing vulnerable to replacement by other sports.”
As McGuigan also wrote, “it’s a nervous moment for amateur boxing.”
Just ask yourself, where would legends such as Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Mark Breland, Oscar De La Hoya…….and so, so many more, have been if there had been no Olympic opportunity open to them as they began their boxing careers? If there were a petition to save the sport as an Olympic event, you can bet your life many, many millions of boxing fans the world over would aggressively sign it!