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≡ INTEL REPORT ≡
Kazakhstan’s National Olympic Committee is headed by 2004 Olympic middleweight silver medalist and two-time middleweight world champion Gennadiy Golovkin, who wants boxing to stay in the Olympic Games.
On Thursday, he was announced as the Chair of a new Olympic Commission by World Boxing, created to help the federation gain recognition as the worldwide governing body for Olympic boxing. Golovkin said in a statement:
“For me personally, as well as for all the sports world, it is important to preserve boxing as an Olympic sport, and this will be my top priority. I also intend to work closely with the IOC on issues of boxing’s commitment to the Olympic values of honesty, fairness and transparency.
“I am confident that my experience as a professional athlete will help build systemic work within World Boxing, and through joint efforts we will be able to give boxing a new impetus to its development, but there is still much to be done.”
The Commission, still in formation, will be an outreach group for World Boxing to recruit new members, promote the federation and appeal to potential sponsors.
Also on Thursday, and in a related development:
“The Kazakhstan Boxing Federation has made an important decision as a result of lengthy discussions and analysis.
“Kazakhstan submitted an official application to join the World Boxing organization.
“This decision is primarily related to the Olympic future of domestic boxers.”
Said Kazakh boxing federation head Shahmurat Mutalip:
“Now the issue of boxing’s remaining in the Olympic program is being discussed at the HOC level. We are ready to work together with all countries in order to preserve boxing in the Olympic Games program.”
Observed: This is more or less the starting gun for a six-month sprint to try and get as many new members as possible for World Boxing, to try and gain recognition from the International Olympic Committee for itself and to keep boxing on the program for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
World Boxing held its founding Congress in November 2023 and has 44 national federation members at present, not counting Kazakhstan. Golovkin and the other Commission members to be named with him will have a difficult task ahead of them, probably needing to approach 100 members within six months or so.
IOC President Thomas Bach (GER) said near the end of the Paris Games that the decision on whether to include boxing in the LA28 program will come in the first part of 2025, with the obvious target being the 143rd IOC Session in Greece from 18-21 March 2025.
The now-disenfranchised International Boxing Association, excommunicated from the Olympic Movement in June 2023 by a special meeting of the IOC membership, is clearly worried, as it recently posted another series of insults, this time from chief executive Chris Roberts (GBR).
The first target of Golovkin and his Commission will be the Asian Boxing Confederation Extraordinary Congress in Thailand on 23 November, at which the sole issue will be the future of Olympic boxing.
A prior vote for the ASBC to join World Boxing was defeated on 31 August, but the issue of what to do about LA28 still lingers. And for the national boxing federations, most of which get their primary support from their governments to select and train athletes for the Olympic Games and related regional competitions, the question is well asked why government support would continue … if boxing is no longer an Olympic sport?
World Boxing already has eight members in Asia – Bhutan, Chinese Taipei, India, Japan, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea – with Kazakhstan coming. But there are only two African members – Algeria and Nigeria – and 13 in Europe. Those are where the new members must come from.
And the clock is running.
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