International Boxing Association will not run events for 2024 Games: International Olympic Committee

By Can Erozden

ANKARA (AA) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Friday it will conduct boxing qualifiers and competitions at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

"In the interest of the athletes and the boxing community, the Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided that the boxing qualifying events and competitions at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 will not be run under the authority of the International Boxing Association (IBA)," the IOC said in a statement.

The IOC executive board decided that the IBA would not run contests for the boxing association's “governance and its refereeing and judging system,” which is a "continuing and very concerning" issue.

"Whether or not boxing will be included on the sports programme of the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 will be discussed at a later stage," it said.

IOC emphasized that there are several concerns about IBA as the boxing association has some ongoing issues about "the refereeing and judging process and its financial dependency on the (Russian) state-owned company Gazprom."

IBA President Umar Kremlev from Russia was reelected unopposed to the chairman post after his only opponent, presidential candidate Boris van der Vorst, had been disqualified days before the vote in Istanbul in May.

On June 14, the Court Of Arbitration For Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland said it overturned the decision, upholding the appeals filed by van der Vorst, Michael McAtee, Steven Hartley and Per-Axel Sjoholm against the Boxing Independent Integrity Unit’s Interim Nomination Unit (INU) decision that the four were "deemed ineligible for candidacy" for IBA's bodies during elections last month.

"Furthermore, the CAS stated that Umar Kremlev had committed the same rule violation yet had been admitted to the election as the sole candidate," according to the IOC.

In addition, the IOC said no host-city agreements were signed for the boxing qualifiers for Paris 2024 and there was "an insufficient number of certified referees and judges" for the events.

In 2024, Paris will become the second city to host the Summer Olympics three times after London in 1908, 1948 and 2012.

The French capital previously hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Games.