The competition between the Cio and Iba heats up: the women’s boxing world championship is underway with Russians and Belarusians competing

In the midst of the controversy that has been going on for almost two months about the possible readmission of athletes as neutral Russia AND belarus, marginalized from international competitions since the invasion of Ukraine, the flags and names of these two countries will reappear in a world championship. It is that women’s boxing ecumenical tournament, which will be held from this Thursday in New Delhi and which is organized by the International Federation (I WAS GOING; suspended by him THAT IS since 2019), has opened the door to boxers of these two nationalities and has further divided the waters.

Several countries including United States of America, Ireland (second with the most medals in the previous edition), Great Britain AND Ukraine, decided to boycott the contest due to the presence of Russians and Belarusians, who had missed last year’s event as measures were in place due to the war in Ukraine. But for this occasion the IBA, chaired by the Russian Umar Kremlevlifted the fine.

The Russian delegation will be, together with that of Kazakhstan, the most numerous, with 35 boxers, even if 12 are expected in the competition, one for each weigh-in. The rest will travel as reserve. The Russians won the 2019 World Cup, with three gold, one silver and two bronze medals. Belarus, meanwhile, has registered six participants.

At the opening ceremony, held on Thursday in the Indian capital, the Russian and Belarusian flags were present, which appear next to the names of the athletes in the pits of each category. Also, Oleg Matytsin, Minister of Sports of Russia, was a guest at the opening party. Two situations that contradict the sanctions in force against those two countries in the vast majority of sports, where, at most, their athletes can compete as neutrals.

Despite the tense relations between the IOC and the IBA, the Olympic Committee has sent a team of observers to the Indian capital to verify whether, as the federation defends, these will be the “fairer and more transparent” World Cup and whether they perceive progress in the necessary arbitration and governance reforms.

The tournament will also mark a new chapter in the unprecedented crisis into which Olympic boxing has plunged less than 500 days into the Paris 2024, due to the confrontation between the IBA and the CIO. A crisis that worsened about three weeks ago when the federation published its classification system for the French Olympic event, in a clear challenge to the Committee, which had stripped it of the power to do so in 2019, when it was suspended for various irregularities and had already approved the route for next year’s Games last year.

“Faced with numerous delays by the International Olympic Committee in announcing a clear qualification process for Paris 2024, the IBA has assumed the role of boxing’s international governing body charged with setting the path through which its athletes will qualify for the next Olympic Games.”, the organization led by Kremlev announced in late February.

He added: “It is a necessary step to protect our athletes, since the process proposed by the IOC is neither acceptable nor fair. Barring the World champions ranking women’s and men’s boxing goes against the principles of sport and boxing.”

The IBA system – unanimously “approved” by all the national federations that participated in the ordinary IBA congress in Abu Dhabi – foresees that the women’s world championships in New Delhi are the main female qualification path and will assign two places per category, for the finalists. The same will happen with the men’s, which will be held from 1 to 14 May TashkentUzbekistan, even with the presence of Russians and Belarusians.

The other tickets would be distributed according to the results of the continental championships; Position in the IBA world rankings as of December 31, 2023; twenty past three gold series; and a world ranking tournament to be held in May next year.

“The IBA reiterates its willingness to cooperate with the IOC for the benefit of boxing, its athletes and the stability and quality of the Olympic Games product,” the association said. And he warned that “no other qualification process for Paris 2024 will be accepted”.

“The aim is to give all athletes the right to compete in the World Championships and not be victims of the political games of a few National Federations,” said the IBA, which claims the champions and runners-up of its World Championships they will have their places secured in Paris.

The IOC, however, does not recognize these competitions as qualifying and confirms the sanction against the IBA, which it imposed in 2019 for irregularities in the arbitration and administrative activity and which cost the federation the authority to organize the classification process for Tokyo 2020.

Kremlev’s re-election as president in May of last year, in an electoral process marked by irregularities and which even ignored a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport which required a repeated vote, led the Committee chaired by Thomas Bach to reiterate its position.

The IOC then announced that even the qualifying boxing competitions for Paris 2024 will not take place under the authority of the International Association, after “continuous and very worrying problems in its governance and in its refereeing and judging system”. And he questioned the presence of sport in the Los Angeles 2028 event. And in September he approved a new system – different from the one he had outlined in April, in agreement with the IBA – based on direct classification through multisport appointments regional, IL Pan American Games in Santiago de Chilethe Europeans in Krakow, the Pacific in Honiara, the Asians in Hanfgzhou and the Africans in Ghana, all of which will take place this year.

The process will be completed in 2024 with two world qualifiers taking place, which still have no confirmed dates or venues.

“The only valid classification system is the one approved by the IOC in September 2022, published and distributed to the National Olympic Committees and National Boxing Federations on December 6, 2022,” the IOC explained to the site. Inside the Games few weeks ago. “The suspension imposed in 2019 on the International Boxing Association is still in effect today.”

Despite tense relations between the IOC and the IBA, the Olympic Committee has sent a team of observers to New Delhi to see if, as the federation defends, this will be the “fairest and most transparent” World Cup and if progress is perceived in le necessary reforms in arbitration and governance for the lifting of the sanction.

Even if for now, with two organizations facing each other and two very different paths traced towards Paris, the biggest losers are the athletes, who, less than a year and a half before the Olympic Games, find themselves facing an unprecedented and charged scenario of uncertainties. A scenario further complicated by the tension and controversy generated by the return of Russian and Belarusian boxers to international competitions.