Boxing maintains its place on Olympic Games: IOC

Suspension on AIBA to continue

By Our correspondent

ISLAMABAD: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board (EB) has recommended to the IOC Session that boxing maintains its place on the sports programme of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 while the suspension on International Boxing Association (AIBA) would continue.

The IOC EB also confirmed the total athlete quota for the sport of boxing at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 would remain at 286 and the total number of eight men’s events and five women’s events would be maintained, as previously approved by the IOC EB on June 9, 2017.

This is the next step towards gender equality in boxing having had 10 men’s events and three women’s events at both London 2012 and Rio 2016.Additionally, the EB created a special task force, chaired by IOC Member and President of the International Gymnastic Federation (FIG) Mr Morinari Watanabe, with the mandate to:

a. Ensure the delivery of the following boxing competitions, with a goal of increasing sustainable gender equality in all areas of the sportThe EB also noted that no Tokyo 2020 qualification system has been previously confirmed by the IOC for boxing and no events have been confirmed by the IOC as Olympic qualification events.

The IOC will develop a new calendar for the Olympic qualifiers, which will take place between January and May 2020. The status of AIBA’s full recognition will in principle be reviewed after Tokyo 2020. The evolution of AIBA’s situation and progress towards compliance with the Olympic Charter and the IOC Code of Ethics are monitored through a special monitoring committee which consist of the members of the former Inquiry Committee.

The 134th IOC Session that will be taking the decision on AIBA and the sport of boxing at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is scheduled to take place from 24 to 26 June 2019 in Lausanne, Switzerland.