IOC uses World Boxing as a new association for Olympic boxing

One of the most exciting news was almost lost. At the end of February, the IOC had told the world association “World Boxing” provisionally as the institution that will organize boxing in the Olympic movement in the future. What sounds bulky stands for a conflict that rarely existed in the world of the five rings – and which the IOC at the last meters of Bachs seem to have to clear power.

If it is after the IOC, “World Boxing”, a baptismal association, will soon replace the International Boxing Association (IBA) – those traditionally affected affairs that were responsible for the boxing tournaments at the Olympics for 80 years. And as so often in Thomas Bach’s tenure, this conflict can be knocked on again how much the IOC is actually about the supposedly so good thing.

To grasp the whole story, as so often, you have to rewind a few decades – and land with Thomas Bach again. In the 1980s, the then Adidas boss Horst Dassler had headed the Pakistan Anwar Chowdhry to the top of the Boxing World Association, which was still called Aiba. Chowdhry was one of the most notorious protagonists from Dassler’s not poor sports official cabinet on notorious figures. According to a man who was there at the conspiratorial planning rounds at the time and was meticulously sticking to it, the rounds were also in the rounds: the young Bach that right hand.

Bach later denied that they have participated in unfair agreements. In any case, an era of the scandals burst in the boxing bandage, which the Adidas colleague Chowdhry now steered. Under Chowdhry’s successor WU, an IOC member from Taiwan, the financial mismanagement escalated; 2016, at the Olympics in Rio, postponed official fights in the best AIBA tradition. The IOC, which had left everything until then, only attested to the association because “serious deficits in finances, organization and judges”. In 2019 it was suspended by Aiba. This was surrounded in IBA and chose the Russian Umar Kremljow to the top.

All complaints from the IBA have so far failed, also before the Swiss Federal Court

Kremljow not only combines a lot with Vladimir Putin, he brought Russian sponsors with Wladimir Putin, including the energy giants Gazprom. Earlier everything is welcome in world sports. But now the Olympic defenses were increasingly renit. Until the knock-out in the summer of 2023: Because the IBA did not show above all where its lush financial streams arise, the IOC withdrawn as a world association in the Olympic movement. A massive and extremely rare step.

Kremljow protested fiery, Bach recently even called a “political prostitute”. But so far everyone complains of the IBA failed, also before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. Only: If you long for a clean bandage for scandal -soaked decades – shouldn’t it be clean?

Because the IBA was suspended, the IOC organized the Olympic boxing tournament 2021 and 2024 itself. It created a mini boxing association, the “Boxing Unit”. It should step in until an integral world association would be on track. But the IOC had just taken care of the Aiba or IBA’s activities, suddenly it was a surprising fear of contact. In September 2019, two officials who had been operational on the competitions, point and referees at the postponed tournament in Rio 2016 changed to the boxing unit of the IOC- and there in leading positions. At the time, it did not explain why the IOC signed these employees.

On the other hand, there is always the leitmotif that Thomas Bach also preached on the IOC throne: Unitythe unity of movement. How this manifested behind the scenes have often shown research: Folding, cutting out rival, bundles.

Whatever you think of the new IBA: she made no institutions to approach Bach’s world. This was particularly blatant to the exchange of blows that escalated in Paris during the 2024 games. In March 2023, the IBA had disqualified the Algerian Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Tin from Taiwan after repeated tests: Both had violated guidelines that only athletes with female chromosome set were allowed to climb into the ring. The IBA said that the IOC was already informed in 2022, as the first whispered (the IOC did not deny this on request). In June 2023, the IOC knew in any case.

Shortly thereafter, the IBA tackled it from the Olympic family. Khelif and Lin? Qualified for Paris in autumn 2023, where they dominated their weight classes. Meanwhile, a partly unworthy debate raised the public about whether the boxers could have started with their punch in the women’s class.

World Boxing, i.e. the association, which in future is to be the Olympic home of sport, stopped the door to Paris to Paris

Bach and the IOC countered that the boxers had been socialized all their lives as women and boxers, and in their passports it was noted as a gender. “Arbitrary” tests are no reason to doubt it. Only: The fact that the IBA is doubtful does not necessarily mean that doubts about the starting right of two boxers are unjustified.

But the IOC refrained from shaking the IBA’s professional verdict, for example with its own tests that would have been easy. Khelif had a complaint against the IBA in front of the CAS sports court, Lin no strict strict strict strict.

In October 2023, shortly after Khelif qualified for Paris, astonishing was done again. Mustapha Berraf, such as Khelif from Algeria and as President of all African Olympic Committees (Anoca), a man with a lot of influence on other IOC members, threw himself into dust at the session in Mumbai. He would like Bach in 2025 notas the IOC statute calls for, to cede as an IOC boss, but may attach a third term.

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And a few more details added to those involved: World Boxing, i.e. the association, which in future is to be the Olympic home of sport, kept Khelif and Lin Up to the end the door, they should want to start at their competitions. Finally, the association then accepted the customer that the IOC had temporarily accepted it into the Olympic family. From next Monday, about the election of the new IOC overhead in Greece, the family should certainly discuss the situation again, at least informally.

So this is not only on the fields of sport: sometimes the parties involved suddenly release unexpected energies. Actually, a world association has to be patient for years, he would like to receive recognition from the IOC, a kind of operating license for the Olympic business. For example, at the time of the application, he should have organized three “events of international importance”, in three different calendar years. This makes the world anti-doping agency Wada a conditionbefore a world association can submit to its rules, the so -called code.

In the case of World Boxing, this is only possible to date; The association was also founded in April 2023. In April 2023, only two “events of international importance” came into consideration: the U19 World Championship 2024 in Colorado Springs and the World Boxing Cup, a kind of World Cup series that started in 2023. Nevertheless, the Wada World Boxing leads meanwhile as signatories of the code.

However, a fuse is hidden in the undergrowth of the WADA paragraph: the three required events could deviate from the “legitimate reasons”. The wada is solely able to make the decision about it. Why she did this in the case of World Boxing leaves the Wada unanswered on request. She only writes that World Boxing has met all criteria.

Why the secrecy? Or the other way around: What would have been about waiting to wait until next autumn – if World Boxing wants to organize his first world championships for men and women in Liverpool? Does it bother you that from summer 2025 a new IOC president will run the business – one who might have even less problems with a world association called IBA?

The IBA has a much better filled cash register than World Boxing

In any case, the provisional recognition of the IOC loses a thrust again. On Wednesday, he reported that six other national associations had joined him, 84 member countries are now being carried out: an impressive proof of the trust of the scene that World Boxing would lead sport into a better future, said President Boris van der Vorst. At the Women’s World Cup of the IBA, which is currently in Serbia, only 51 nations were reported.

However, the mountain of tasks is still enormous, from a completely new competition structure to the question of how World Boxing will position itself in the gender debate in the future. A set of rules will be presented “in the coming weeks”, the Association of the German wave Finally with. The safety of the boxers is “the absolutely highest good”. All of this only costs money – the World Boxing does not (yet) have.

The balance sheets for the 2024 financial year are assets of almost 100,000 Swiss francs, a loss of almost CHF 150,000 and a loan of $ 250,000, which the US association last granted. The IOC recently announced that the World Association “Several Commercial Partnerships” has proven until 2028 “; WORLD Boxing will soon grant grants itself. But just the association, which is supposed to give way to World Boxing, has a much better filled checkout.

Although she was not responsible for Paris, IBA offered all medal winners of the boxing tournament prize money, $ 100,000 for the Olympic champions. The world champions in Serbia are now preserved so much. The IBA also drives out the elbows next to the ring, the Swiss Attorney General recently called: The fact that the IOC Khelif and Lin launched in Paris endangered the health of others, the violation of Swiss law – and earned an investigation, for example against Thomas Bach.

If it goes down, then with a sports political fist fight, that seems to be the message. Not to be excluded everywhere.