LONDON (AP) – American and British boxing officials are among the leaders of a breakaway group launched on Thursday with the aim of saving boxing’s place at the Olympics.
The new federation, to be called World Boxing, is a rival to the 77-year-old International Boxing Association, which has been suspended from organising the sport at the Olympics amid longstanding concerns about fair judging and the IBA’s ties to Russia.
“Amateur, Olympic-style boxing was facing elimination from the Olympic Games,” said USA Boxing president Tyson Lee, who is on the interim board of the new organisation. “I can speak for the United States and many other national federations. We have a vested interest in maintaining a pathway to the Olympic movement and somewhere along the line that turned out to not be a priority for IBA.”
World Boxing will be based in Switzerland and have a board consisting of athletes and officials, including Lee and GB Boxing chief executive Matthew Holt. Lauren Price of Britain, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and silver medalist Richard Torrez Jr of the United States (US) are on the board as athlete representatives.
Elections for a president and a new board are planned for November.
“This is about the future of the sport,” Holt said. “Our status on the Olympic programme is on life support and we, as an organisation, need to breathe new life into it. We want to operate in the best interests of the boxers.”
A standoff between the IBA and the International Olympic Committee meant boxing was left off the initial programme for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Boxing is part of next year’s Paris Olympics, but it will be organised by the IOC.
The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 after years of concerns about its finances, governance and claims that fights at the 2016 Olympics were manipulated. Current IBA president Umar Kremlev took over in 2020, bringing financial backing from Russian state gas company Gazprom.
The IOC wants Russians to compete as neutral athletes in Olympic sports, but Kremlev’s IBA has allowed them to fight at the world championships with national flags and anthems, drawing another rebuke from the IOC.
The US and Britain were among more than 10 countries that announced boycotts of the recent women’s world championships and upcoming men’s world championships because of Russia’s position and wider concerns about the IBA. Kremlev said officials who backed a boycott were “worse than hyenas and jackals.”
