Boxing Gets Green Light To Participate In The 2028 Olympics

Boxing can be competed at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics (doc. World Boxing).

JAKARTA The boxing sport (sports) received the green light to take part in the 2028 Olympics which will take place in Los Angeles, United States.

The opportunity to stay in this quadrennial event is open after a recommendation from the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The recommendation still needs to be approved by the IOC in a meeting this week in Greece.

IOC president Thomas Bach, who will soon step down, hopes the recommendation gets the green light after World Boxing receives recognition in February 2025.

"These recommendations must be brought to trial, but I firmly believe they will agree so that all boxers in the world have the certainty to participate in Los Angeles," Bach was quoted as saying by BBC Sport.

If approved, there will be only athletes whose national federations become members of World Boxing who can take part at the start of the qualification for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

World Boxing president, Boris van der Vorst, welcomed the recommendation. He said that this was an important decision regarding the fate of boxing at the Olympics.

"On behalf of everyone at World Boxing, I would like to thank the IOC Executive Board for the trust they have given to our organization and we hope that there will be positive results," he said.

Boxing was initially not part of the Los Angeles 2028 program when it was announced in 2022. However, last month World Boxing received temporary recognition as an international regulatory body for the sport.

The formation of the new global body is the biggest obstacle for the inclusion of boxing in the next Olympics. The agency was formed in April 2023 and now has 84 members on five continents.

The IOC has been boxing in the last two Olympics after the International Boxing Association (IBA) was suspended as the world's sporting governing body in 2019 due to governance, finance, referees, and ethics issues.

The IBA led by Russia was later revoked in June 2023 for failing to carry out reforms. The dispute between IBA and the IOC then heated up during the 2024 Paris Olympics.

At that time, the IOC had different opinions with IBA regarding the participation of two boxers, Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-ting from China Taipei.

IBA banned the two fighters in the midst of the 2023 World Championships on the grounds that they failed a gender eligibility test. However, the IOC allowed them to compete and both won gold medals in their class.