The International Olympic Committee has taken a key step toward retaining boxing on the program for the Los Angeles Games in 2028 as it recognized a new governing body for the sport.
The IOC board granted provisional recognition Wednesday to World Boxing, a group founded in 2023 as a breakaway from the long-established but troubled International Boxing Association. World Boxing has 78 members, including many former IBA members, across five continents.
The IOC said World Boxing showed that 62% of boxers from last year’s Paris Olympics were affiliated with its members. The IOC added that World Boxing “has demonstrated strong willingness and effort in enhancing good governance and implementation, to be compliant with the appropriate standards.”
Former boxing great Gennadiy Golovkin, who heads the commission tasked with establishing World Boxing as a credible body to run Olympic bouts, said it was an important moment but much work remained.
“Receiving provisional Olympic recognition from the IOC is an important achievement and demonstrates that our sport is on the right path. This decision brings us one step closer to our main goal — preserving boxing at the Olympic Games,” Golovkin said in a statement.
The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 following long-running disputes over governance, its finances and the integrity of bouts and judging. The IOC took the rare step of banishing the IBA from the Olympic movement entirely in 2023, shortly after the World Boxing breakaway.
The IOC organized the boxing tournaments at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the Paris Games last year but said it needed a new partner in time for 2028.
Since it was suspended, the IBA and its Russian president Umar Kremlev have continued to feud with the IOC, particularly over the rules on eligibility for women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics, with a focus on gold medalists Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting. The IBA said this month that it planned to file criminal complaints against the IOC in the United States, France and Switzerland.
World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst noted the significance of the IOC’s decision but said there was more work to be done.
“Keeping its place at the Olympic Games is absolutely critical to the future of our sport at every level … and this decision by the IOC takes us one step closer to our objective of seeing boxing restored to the Olympic programme,” Van der Vorst said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
