Olympics
Power struggle overshadows Paris Games as boxing’s future hangs in balance
Boxing has been an almost ever-present fixture at the Olympics but a bitter conflict over the sport’s governance has cast doubt over its future, with this year’s tournament in danger of being the last for a while at least.
Just as in Tokyo, the boxing tournaments in Paris are being organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which stripped the International Boxing Association (IBA) of recognition last June.
The IBA’s decision to award prize money to boxers at the Paris Games has driven yet another wedge into relations between the bodies and there are fears the sport might be excluded from future Olympics and it is not on the initial programme for Los Angeles 2028.
It is hard to imagine an Olympic landscape without the ‘sweet science’ – which has been a part of every Games since 1904 with the exception of Stockholm 1912 – and even amid the doom and gloom, there is hope that the allure of the brutal sport will prevail.
“The future of boxing is the best and brightest we can possibly imagine,” IBA president Umar Kremlev told Reuters.
“In the world, there are only two sports that can always fill out stadiums, football and boxing. We just need to continue with the work that we have been doing and prove that boxing is the flagship of all Olympic sports.”
HAVANA’S HEAVY HITTERS
Inside the ring, Cuba once again looks set to lead the way when the July 27-Aug. 10 tournament kicks off.
Despite sending just seven boxers to the Tokyo Olympics, the amateur boxing powerhouse stole the limelight as they won four gold medals to top the podium ahead of the United States, their much larger and wealthier neighbours.
This time around, their contingent will have even fewer boxers, with only five pugilists making the trans-Atlantic trip, but with two twice gold medallists among their ranks it would be foolish to count Cuba out.
Julio Cesar La Cruz and Arlen Lopez Cardona, champions in both Tokyo and Rio, will be looking to carve out a small slice of history in Paris by winning their third gold medals and joining an exclusive club alongside Teofilo Stevenson, Felix Savon and Lazlo Papp.
However, the North American nation will be disappointed not to have any women boxers on their Olympic roster, after they ended a decades-long ban on women competing in tournaments in 2022.
MORE WOMEN
Since the introduction of women’s boxing at the Olympics in 2012, organisers have gradually increased the weight divisions, with Paris featuring six categories for women – twice as many as at the 2012 and 2016 Games.
Ireland’s Kellie Harrington will aim to retain her lightweight gold from Tokyo but her preparations have not been ideal after she suffered her first loss in over three years at the European Elite Championships in April.
The 34-year-old, who will retire after the Paris Games, said the defeat had strengthened her resolve to bow out with a win, adding: “It has put a bit of a fire under my arse to get me going again.”
Welterweight boxer Busenaz Surmeneli, who clinched Turkey’s first-ever boxing gold in Tokyo, has looked imperious in the build-up to Paris, having won the World Championships, European Games and European Championships since 2021.
The men’s super-heavyweight category is also one to watch, with Olympic, world and Asian Games champion Bakhodir Jalolov of Uzbekistan up against the likes of Britain’s Delicious Orie and Teremoana Junior of Australia.
The United States, the most successful nation in Olympic boxing history, did not win a gold medal in Tokyo and are likely to struggle again with a team made up of rookies, with 2021 world champion Jahmal Harvey looking like their best shot.
-Reuters
Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday awarded a top state honour to an Olympic skeleton racer who was disqualified from the Winter Games for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy, speaking to Vladyslav Heraskevych on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, said he had great respect for “all the Olympians who supported you and your position.”
“Medals are important for Ukraine and for you, but it seems to me that the most important thing is who you are,” Zelenskiy said while presenting the racer with the Order of Freedom.
Heraskevych told the president the award was “huge” and that the athletes depicted on the helmet “deserve it even more. Because of their sacrifice, we can compete in the Olympics.”
Heraskevych, 27, was disqualified at the Winter Games in Italy on Thursday when the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation jury ruled that the helmet’s depiction of athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 breached rules on political neutrality.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal on Friday.
Heraskevych told reporters after the award ceremony that his disqualification was discriminatory as he had not violated the Olympic Charter, a document he said he “really valued.”
“But at the same time, I understand that this scandal has united people around the world about our problem and about the sacrifice of these great athletes, and I believe this goal is much more important than any medal,” he said.
Speaking before the CAS hearing earlier in the day, Heraskevych said his exclusion and rules imposed by the International Olympic Committee were “an instrument of propaganda for Russia. I still receive a lot of threats from the Russian side.”
-Reuters
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Ukraine’s skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Winter Games on Thursday over the use of a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia, the International Olympic Committee said.
He was informed of his disqualification after a meeting with IOC President Kirsty Coventry early in the morning at the sliding venue.
His team said they would appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Coventry told reporters she had wanted to meet the athlete face to face in a last-ditch effort to break the impasse.
“I was not meant to be here but I thought it was really important to come here and talk to him face to face,” Coventry told reporters.
“No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory.
“The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play. Sadly we’ve not been able to find that solution” she added, choking up.
“I really wanted to see him race, It’s been an emotional morning.”
The IOC offered him the opportunity to display his “helmet of remembrance” depicting 24 images of dead compatriots before the start and after the end of Thursday’s race at the Games, while also allowing him to wear a black armband while competing.
“I am disqualified from the race. I will not get my Olympic moment,” said Heraskevych.
The skeleton competition starts later on Thursday.
-Reuters
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