Embattled Olympic boxing body picks Russia for 2019 worlds
Financial concerns leave Calgary wary of 2026 bid
The embattled governing body of Olympic boxing has picked Russia to host the 2019 men’s world championships, amid reports of a no-confidence vote against President Ching-Kuo Wu over concerns about the Switzerlandbased body’s finances.
The International Boxing Association, known as AIBA, said its executive committee chose 2014 Winter Games host city Sochi to stage the biennial event. The 2017 edition opens Aug. 25 in Hamburg, Germany.
AIBA’s ruling committee, meeting Monday in Moscow, also picked the Russian capital to host its 2018 congress of member federations.
An AIBA statement on the hosting decision did not mention a reported rebellion against Wu.
Wu
The New York Times said a 12-2 vote was passed Monday against Wu, who has led AIBA for 11 years.
The Taiwanese official is also a longstanding International Olympic Committee member who has sat on its executive board since 2012. He was one of six candidates in the IOC presidential election in 2013.
AIBA said a statement would be made later Tuesday.
Wu and AIBA have repeatedly denied claims of a potential financial crisis for the organization due to investors wanting to call in sums of several millions of dollars.
In other hosting decisions Monday, AIBA awarded both the 2021 men’s world championships and 2018 women’s championships to New Delhi, India. The 2019 women’s worlds will be staged in Trabzon, Turkey.
Meanwhile, the city of Calgary wants more information from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before deciding whether to pursue
a bid for the 2026 Winter Games.
A potential bid was on the agenda of Monday’s city council meeting in the city in Western Canada that hosted the 1988 Winter Games.
But the bid exploration committee concluded that while a bid is “feasible” it is not sure to be “prudent” and the bid committee want more details from the IOC on host requirements and possible support that would help reduce costs.
“There’s absolutely no way to give a ‘yes’ today,” councillor Andre Chabot said. “There’s too many uncertainties. We need a better picture.”
The bid exploration committee has estimated the price tag for the games to be about $4.6 billion.
That’s lower than the $7.7 billion that the 2010 Games in Vancouver, in part because Calgary would be able to use some already existing venues.
The committee’s figures estimate the Games would need an injection of some $1.2 billion from municipal and provincial governments to balance the budget.
The committe urged the council to hold off on a decision to see what support the IOC might be able to provide to reduce costs, given IOC president Thomas Bach’s declaration in May that the “candidature process ... has become too expensive and too onerous”.
The IOC has assured the bid exploration committee that streamlined procedures for organizers offer “opportunities for significant savings”.
The host of the 2026 Winter Games will be selected in 2019.
Sion, Switzerland, and Innsbruck, Austria, have voiced interest in bidding for the 2026 Games. Stockholm expressed early interest but indicated in April it would not mount a bid.