Women's Boxing Among Changes to 2012 Program

(ATR) International Boxing Federation chief CK Wu tells Around the Rings he is “very happy” with the addition of women’s boxing to the 2012 Olympics program.

“As president of AIBA I feel it is very important. I put this as a priority to bring it into the Olympic Games,” he told ATR shortly after IOC President Jacques Rogge announced the decision following its Executive Board meeting Thursday.

“They [female boxers] have the right because they have shown they have a very high level of competition, a very good athletic spirit.

“Today’s decision is proof they deserve to be in the Olympic Games. I am very happy. This will certainly help the future development of women’s boxing in the world.”

Wu dismissed concerns voiced by some that women don’t belong in boxing.

“We are living in the 21st century and if we are talking about body contact sports, we have wrestling , judo and taekwondo… all have women except boxing,” he said.

Wu said his experience of women’s boxing globally clearly showed that female athletes had attained the same high level of training and competition as their male counterparts.

The IOC’s decision reduced gender inequality in the sports program for the 2012 Olympics, he added.

Commenting on the impact of women’s boxing on the Olympic Movement CK said: “Boxing without women certainly is a shame. But now I think this really equalizes the 26 sports in the Olympic program, they all have women’s competitions. This is a very important decision by the IOC.”

The EB approved the introduction of three weight categories for women at the 2012 Games, with 12 boxers taking part in flyweight, lightweight and middleweight. One of the men's 11 classes will be dropped to make room for the women and to keep within the IOC’s quota of 286 athletes.

The IOC said the decision recognized that women’s boxing has made substantial progress in universality and technical quality of female boxers since the EB last considered the discipline in 2005. "I can only rejoice about the inclusion of women's boxing,” IOC President Jacques Rogge told a press conference Thursday.

“I think it's a great addition. Boxing was the sole [Olympic] sport with no women involved. The sport of women's boxing has progressed a lot in the last five years and it was about time to include them in the Games.”

New Events for 2012 Olympics

Rogge said that most of the 33 applications from 17 international federations proposing changes for London 2012 had been “politely declined”. The main reason was that combined they would have increased the number of competitors in the Olympics by an additional 720 athletes above the IOC’s 10,500 limit.

He said exceptions were made for women’s boxing, canoe sprint and several other sports.

The International Canoe Federation gets its wish to replace men’s C2 500m with women’s K1 200m and the remaining three men’s 500m sprint events with 200m sprint events. Rogge said the changes would provide more spectacular racing.

The EB also approved a new combined run-shoot format for modern pentathlon. And it agreed to scrap largely meaningless placement matches in the handball tournament.

Rogge said mixed doubles in tennis would be included at the 2012 Games pending guarantees from the International Tennis Federation that the top players in the singles rankings would be able to participate. A final decision will be made at the EB in December.

Three IFs – wrestling, swimming and cycling – had submitted requests for new events and/or larger quotas of athletes. Rogge said this could happen, especially if the new events increase the participation of women at the Games and on condition that they replace events already on the program. Current events can be replaced with new ones only if the total number of athletes is maintained.

Wrestling wants 63 more women to compete at London 2012, which Rogge said was fine as long as they replaced 63 men.

Among the International Swimming Federation’s (FINA) requests are: the 50s of strokes, the men's 800 free and the women's 1500 free (42 total events); add four teams to women's water polo (changing total to 12); add four teams to synchronized swimming (changing total to 12); add free combination to synchronized swimming.

Rogge said the IOC would sanction the changes only if the new FINA events were switched with existing events in the Olympic program so that the quota of athletes was not increased. It appears unlikely FINA will swap the women's 1,500 for the women's 800.

The EB’s decision was based on recommendations of the IOC’s program commission, which has spent months analyzing all of the IF requests. The key factors included whether the changes would increase universality, gender equity and youth appeal, and in general add value to the Games.

All modifications of events, quotas or competition formats for the 2012 Olympics will be reviewed again for the 2016 Games.

New IOC Members Proposal

Six candidates are to be proposed for election as IOC members at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen in October.

They were approved by the EB for the Session vote following recommendations made by the IOC Nominations Commission.

The candidates are:

Richard Peterkin, president of the St. Lucia Olympic Committee; Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark; Habu Ahmed Gumel, president of the Nigerian Olympic Committee; Habib Abdul Nabi Macki from Oman, a vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia; Lydia Nsekera, president of the Burundi Football Association; and Sweden’s Goran Petersson, president of the International Sailing Federation.

With reporting from Mark Bisson. Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only