MAJOR CHANGE
A profound shakeup for the Olympic boxing event appears to be in the works
INDICATIONS are that a major change will come into effect for the next Olympic Games, with two additional women’s divisions being included in the boxing tournament at Tokyo 2020, but at the expense of the men’s event having to lose two weight classes.
The International Olympic Committee made a series changes across different sports and have decreed in boxing for two men’s events to be transferred to two women’s events. AIBA, the international governing body, issued a statement on the matter on Friday ( June 9). So far it is unconfirmed what weight classes will be affected, although they do say the number of boxers overall at Tokyo 2020 will not be reduced.
They said, “AIBA has taken note of the IOC Executive Board decision of June 9 in pursuit of greater gender equality at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the resultant changes to the Olympic Boxing Tournament that will see eight men’s and five women’s weight categories contested. Boxing is one of the Summer Olympic sports that are a part of this genderbalancing process, a key element of the Olympic Agenda 2020, however there will be no drop in the total number of our athletes competing in Tokyo 2020 compared with Rio 2016.
“AIBA is proud of the central role it has played in developing women’s boxing and its introduction to the Olympic programme at London 2012, which saw the first gold medals awarded to the superb champions Nicola Adams, Katie Taylor and Claressa Shields, and fully supports the move towards gender equality. AIBA’S next step is to convene the expertise of its relevant Commissions in the coming days and open discussions regarding the optimum ways of adapting the competition structure to incorporate these changes. The Commissions’ findings will then be presented to the AIBA Executive Committee at its annual meeting in late July.”