Olympics-IOC recommends inclusion of boxing in Los Angeles 2028 Games, says IOC's Bach

By Karolos Grohmann

PYLOS, Greece (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee executive board on Monday recommended the inclusion of boxing in the Los Angeles 2028 summer Olympics, ending a years-long saga regarding the sport's Olympic future.

The IOC last month granted provisional recognition to World Boxing in a major step towards the sport's inclusion in the 2028 Olympics.

"After the provisional recognition of World Boxing in February we were in the position to take this decision so that this recommendation has to go to the session," IOC President Thomas Bach told a press conference. "I am confident the session will approve it."

The recommendation will now be put to a vote at the IOC session in Greece this week and is expected to pass easily, with boxing among the popular Olympic sports.

The boxing competition at the Paris 2024 Games was run by the IOC after it had stripped the International Boxing Association of recognition in 2023 over its failure to implement reforms on governance and finance.

The IOC had not included the sport on the initial LA 2028 programme, having urged national boxing federations to create a new global boxing body. World Boxing, now with more than 80 national federations as members, was launched in 2023.

"This is a very significant and important decision for Olympic boxing and takes the sport one step closer to being restored to the Olympic programme," Boris van der Vorst, president of World Boxing said in a statement.

"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."

The IOC said only athletes whose national federations were members of World Boxing by the time of the start of the qualification events for the 2028 Olympics could take part in Los Angeles.

"Somewhere between two years before the Games," IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell said when asked by what time national federations needed to join World Boxing for their athletes to be eligible for Los Angeles.

"It is not frozen. Now we see an acceleration of the number of federations joining (World Boxing). They need to be members at the time of the qualification events," McConnell added.

The IOC suspended the IBA, run by Russian businessman Umar Kremlev, in 2019 over governance, finance, refereeing and ethical issues and did not involve it in running the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, before stripping it of recognition in 2023, an extremely rare move by the IOC.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Christian Radnedge)