Boost for boxing! LA 2028 doors open after IOC vote

Boxing was included on Thursday in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics programme after a unanimous vote from the International Olympic Committee, ending years of doubt over 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 LA Games and Thursday's decision ensured the sport's Olympic presence would continue.

"I thank you for the approval of having boxing back. We can look forward to a great boxing tournament," IOC President Thomas Bach said.

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 to replace the IBA. World Boxing, currently with more than 80 national federations as members, was launched in 2023.

The IOC has 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.

The IOC suspended the IBA, run by Russian businessman Umar Kremlev with close links to the Kremlin, in 2019 over governance, finance, refereeing and ethical issues.

It did not involve the IBA in running the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and in a rare move two years later stripped it of recognition.