THE future for boxing at the Olympic Games took a huge step in the right direction on Wednesday as the IOC ‘provisionally recognised’ World Boxing as the body to oversee competition at Los Angeles 2028.

There was a very real chance that there would be no boxing at the Olympics for the first time ever after the International Olympic Committee officially stripped the International Boxing Association (IBA) of its recognition in June 2023, citing issues regarding governance, finance and ethics.

For the past two Olympic Games, in Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, a so-called ‘special taskforce’ was in charge of running the boxing competition but it was made very clear that would not be the case at Los Angeles 2028 and the sport was not included in the programme for the games.

However the IOC did confirm that they would reconsider their stance if a credible and well-governed international federation could convince them they were capable of running the competition in LA.

And on Wednesday, during a remote meeting, the IOC granted provisional recognition to World Boxing, the federation launched in 2023 with the clear mission statement: to preserve boxing at the Olympic Games.

In simple terms, this means that the IOC have recognised the progress made by World Boxing, which is currently composed of 78 national federations from five different continents.

An IOC statement read: “The assessment concluded that World Boxing has continued to make progress regarding the identified areas of consideration in order to be recommended for IOC Provisional Recognition as the International Federation within the Olympic Movement governing the sport of boxing at world level.”

Former world middleweight champion and 2004 Olympic silver medalist Gennady Golovkin, who is the chairman of the World Boxing Olympic Commission said: “Receiving provisional Olympic recognition from the IOC is an important achievement and demonstrates that our sport is on the right path.

“This decision brings us one step closer to our main goal - preserving boxing at the Olympic Games.”

Although there is still work to be done to gain full recognition and ensure boxing returns to the Olympic programme, the news was hailed as a ‘significant day’ for the sport by World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst.

“This is a very significant day for everyone connected with the sport of boxing,” he said.

“Keeping its place at the Olympic Games is absolutely critical to the future of our sport at every level, from the grassroots to the highest echelons of professional boxing, and this decision by the IOC takes us one step closer to our objective of seeing boxing restored to the Olympic programme.

“Today’s decision by the IOC is an important milestone, however everyone connected with World Boxing understands that being part of the Olympic Movement is a privilege and a responsibility and not a right.

“There is still a lot of work to do, and everyone is as committed as ever to continuing to work together and doing everything within our power to deliver a better future for our sport and ensuring that boxing remains at the heart of the Olympic Movement.”