Each particular person has the appropriate to practise sport with out discrimination.
All athletes collaborating within the boxing event of the Olympic Video games Paris 2024 adjust to the competitors’s eligibility and entry rules, in addition to all relevant medical rules set by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU) (please discover all relevant guidelines right here). As with earlier Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based mostly on their passport.
These guidelines additionally utilized through the qualification interval, together with the boxing tournaments of the 2023 European Video games, Asian Video games, Pan American Video games and Pacific Video games, the advert hoc 2023 African qualifying event in Dakar (SEN) and two world qualifying tournaments held in Busto Arsizio (ITA) and Bangkok (THA) in 2024, which concerned a complete of 1,471 completely different boxers from 172 Nationwide Olympic Committees (NOCs), the Boxing Refugee Crew and Particular person Impartial Athletes, and featured over 2,000 qualification bouts.
The PBU used the Tokyo 2020 boxing guidelines as a baseline to develop its rules for Paris 2024. This was to minimise the impression on athletes’ preparations and assure consistency between Olympic Video games. These Tokyo 2020 guidelines have been based mostly on the post-Rio 2016 guidelines, which have been in place earlier than the suspension of the boxing Worldwide Federation by the IOC in 2019 and the following withdrawal of its recognition in 2023.
We now have seen in stories deceptive details about two feminine athletes competing on the Olympic Video games Paris 2024. The 2 athletes have been competing in worldwide boxing competitions for a few years within the ladies’s class, together with the Olympic Video games Tokyo 2020, Worldwide Boxing Affiliation (IBA) World Championships and IBA-sanctioned tournaments.
These two athletes have been the victims of a sudden and arbitrary choice by the IBA. In direction of the top of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they have been all of the sudden disqualified with none due course of.
In line with the IBA minutes obtainable on their web site, this choice was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary Normal and CEO. The IBA Board solely ratified it afterwards and solely subsequently requested {that a} process to comply with in related instances sooner or later be established and mirrored within the IBA Laws. The minutes additionally say that the IBA ought to “set up a transparent process on gender testing”.
The present aggression in opposition to these two athletes is predicated totally on this arbitrary choice, which was taken with none correct process – particularly contemplating that these athletes had been competing in top-level competitors for a few years.
Such an method is opposite to good governance.
Eligibility guidelines shouldn’t be modified throughout ongoing competitors, and any rule change should comply with acceptable processes and must be based mostly on scientific proof.
The IOC is dedicated to defending the human rights of all athletes collaborating within the Olympic Video games as per the Olympic Constitution, the IOC Code of Ethics and the IOC Strategic Framework on Human Rights. The IOC is saddened by the abuse that the 2 athletes are at present receiving.
The IBA’s recognition was withdrawn by the IOC in 2023 following its suspension in 2019. The withdrawal of recognition was confirmed by the Court docket of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). See the IOC’s assertion following the ruling.
The IOC has made it clear that it wants Nationwide Boxing Federations to achieve a consensus round a brand new Worldwide Federation to ensure that boxing to be included on the sports activities programme of the Olympic Video games LA28.
