After years of doubt over boxing's ongoing inclusion at the Olympics, the sport has been given another reprieve and will feature at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles in 2028.
Outgoing International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said on Monday the executive board had approved including boxing on the 2028 program.
It still needed a full IOC Session to sign off on the decision this week, but that was considered a formality.
Due to ongoing governance issues, the IOC took the unusual step of organising the boxing tournaments at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the Paris Games in 2024 after relations with the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA) broke down.
The IOC said it would not do the same in LA, urging national boxing federations to find a new governing body in time for 2028.
The lingering doubt over boxing's presence at the Games was alarming for Australia, with Tokyo and Paris both hugely successful for Australian fighters.
Harry Garside won lightweight bronze in Tokyo — Australia's first medal at a Games since Grahame Cheney in 1988.
Then featherweight Charlie Senior and middleweight Caitlin Parker both won bronze in Paris, the first time Australia had claimed multiple boxing medals at the same Games since 1960.
In Paris, both Garside and Parker pleaded with the IOC to find a solution to boxing's woes.
"Boxing is historically a poor man's sport … it's the countries that come from these really rough areas in the world, they're the ones that come and win gold medals," Garside said.
"I think, to take that away from people like that, is a crime and I would hate to see it.
"Boxing deserves to be in the Olympics. It has saved many people's lives, and I have seen it save many people's lives."
Parker, Australia's first women's boxing medallist and a self-proclaimed Olympics obsessive, said to take the sport out of the Games just as women's boxing was on the rise would be disappointing.
"It has been just such a massive part of my life, the Olympics," Parker said in Paris.
"I've been always been so obsessed about it.
"It kind of makes me so sad to think that some kids that look up to us, or kids that are starting this sport that have the same kind of dream, that's going to be shattered for them.
"That absolutely guts me. And especially women … we're just starting to create history in this sport."
Last month, the IOC recognised a new governing body, World Boxing, which already had more than 60 per cent of the boxers who competed in Paris affiliated with it, including more than 50 per cent of medallists.
"I am very confident that the session will approve it so that all the boxers of the world then have certainty that they can participate in the Olympic Games LA 2028, if their national federation is recognised by World Boxing," Bach said.
The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 following long-running disputes over governance, its finances and the integrity of bouts and judging.
It took the rare step of banishing the IBA from the Olympic movement entirely in 2023.
Shortly after, some IBA members broke away to form World Boxing.
Since it was suspended, the IBA and its Russian president Umar Kremlev have continued to feud with the IOC, particularly over the rules on eligibility for women's boxing at the Paris Olympics.
The eligibility question was bought into stark relief in Paris by the cases of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, who the IBA said had failed gender eligibility tests without providing any evidence.
The IBA said last month it planned to file criminal complaints against the IOC in the United States, France and Switzerland.
World Boxing is expected to work on reviewing and updating rules on female eligibility that need to be in place before Olympic qualifying events start, likely next year.
"This is a very significant and important decision for Olympic boxing and takes the sport one step closer to being restored to the Olympic program," World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst said in a statement on Monday.
"I have no doubt it will be very positively received by everyone connected with boxing, at every level throughout the world, who understands the critical importance to the future of the sport of boxing continuing to remain a part of the Olympic movement."
American and British boxing officials were among World Boxing's founders in 2023, and the breakaway body has since added countries with key influence in Olympic circles, including India and, last week, China.
The new boxing body now has a membership of more than 80 national federations, though Russia, Spain and many African countries are among those yet to sign up.
AP/ABC
