Boxing is now likely to feature at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, with the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommending its addition to the sports program.
The recommendation came earlier today, as the IOC Session in Greece gets underway.
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When that event’s initial sports program was announced in 2022, boxing did not feature – the IOC was at that point engaged in a major war of words with the International Boxing Association.
However, since then, the IBA has had its recognition as the sport's Olympic body removed by the IOC (that took place in mid-2023), and then last month the World Boxing organization – based in Switzerland – was given provisional recognition, by the IOC, as its replacement.
The recommendation for boxing to come into the LA28 sports program – and thus maintain its status as having been present at every Summer Olympic Games since missing out in 1912 – will likely be approved at the IOC Session this week in Greece.
The IOC itself has had to run the boxing events at the previous two Olympic Games – Tokyo 2021 and Paris last year – following the suspension of the IBA (led by Russia’s Umar Kremlev) as the sport's governing body in 2019.
It was then finally removed entirely from that position two years ago, mostly because of its failure to implement IOC-recommended reforms that were seen as necessary for any kind of reinstatement to occur. The IOC had by that point made it clear that it would not be running any boxing event at LA28, and that in order for the sport to be added to the program, a new governing body would have to step forward.
The original IBA suspension was caused by a myriad of issues with the IBA – governance-related, financial, and around judging and refereeing at previous major events (including the Rio Olympics in 2016).
World Boxing, meanwhile, was formed in April 2023, and has since then expanded its national Olympic federation membership to 84, spread across five continents. That body (which over the last two years has regularly been disparaged and discredited by the IBA) has always had boxing’s addition to the LA28 schedule as its main goal.
Its provisional recognition by the IOC last month came with the latter body stating World Boxing had “put in place the structure and documentation for good governance … and has demonstrated strong willingness and effort in enhancing good governance and implementation.”
It has also successfully applied for signatory status with the World Anti-Doping Code, and “has provided assurance about its revenue-generating process based on multi-year commercial partnership agreements."
Thomas Bach, president of the IOC – although a new president will be elected this week – has now said: “After the provisional recognition of World Boxing in February we were in a position to take this decision. This recommendation has to go to the session, but I am very confident they will approve it so that all the boxers of the world then have certainty they can participate in the Olympic Games in LA.”
Boris Van der Vorst, the World Boxing, has also commented, saying: “This is a very significant and important decision for Olympic boxing and takes the sport one step closer to being restored to the Olympic program.
”I have no doubt it will be very positively received by everyone connected with boxing, at every level throughout the world, who understands the critical importance to the future of the sport of boxing continuing to remain a part of the Olympic movement.
“World Boxing understands that being part of the Olympic Games is a privilege and not a right and I assure the IOC that if boxing is restored to the program for LA28, World Boxing is completely committed to being a trustworthy and reliable partner that will adhere to and uphold the values of the Olympic Charter."
