Underdog candidate fights to keep boxing in Olympics

With boxing’s Olympic future on the line, Serik Konakbayev will fight to save his sport.

The one-time Olympic silver medalist from Kazakhstan is the underdog candidate in Saturday’s presidential vote at AIBA, the amateur boxing federation locked in conflict with the International Olympic Committee, which hasn’t decided whether boxing will be on the 2020 Olympic program.

The IOC hinted it could refuse to recognize AIBA if incumbent interim president Gafur Rakhimov, the other candidate, wins. Rakhimov is on a U.S. Treasury Department sanctions list for alleged ties to organized crime and international heroin trafficking but has denied wrongdoing.

“If he wins, the IOC will take a tough decision which won’t make us happy,” Konakbayev told the Associated Press, referring to Rakhimov. “We could lose participation as an Olympic sport in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. That’s the scariest thing and we should all think about that.”

Konakbayev, 59, held back from personal criticism of Rakhimov, saying he was merely relaying the IOC’s concerns.

“Mr. Rakhimov has been in AIBA for a long time, he loves boxing and Mr. Rakhimov wants to make boxing better,” he said, but added: “I think that the doubts which the IOC has expressed are not groundless, so as an organization, we need to take it all seriously and be ready to avoid these consequences.” /