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
Paris 2024 sold a record 12 million tickets for the Olympics and Paralympics, beating the Games record previously set by London 2012, organisers said on Sunday.
Some 9.5 million tickets were sold for the Olympics and 2.5 million for the Paralympics, which end on Sunday.
In 2012, London organisers set the record for the Paralympics with 2.7 million tickets sold but only 8.2 million were sold for the Olympics.
-Reuters
The French capital will pay tribute to Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set on fire by her boyfriend, by naming a sports facility in her honour, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday.
The marathon runner, who competed in the Paris Games last month died on Thursday, four days after she was doused in petrol and ignited by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.
The 33-year-old, who finished 44th in her Olympic Games debut, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in Sunday’s attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.
“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” Hidalgo told reporters.
“Paris will not forget her. We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Cheptegei is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s death as a loss “to the entire region”.
“This is a critical moment— not just to mourn the loss of a remarkable Olympian, but to commit ourselves to creating a society that respects and protects the dignity of every individual,” Uganda’s Athletes commission Chair Ganzi Semu Mugula said on Friday.
-Reuters
Engineer’s descendants say French capital landmark ‘not intended as advertising platform’
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
The five rings – 29m (95ft) wide, 15m high and weighing 30 tonnes – were installed on the Eiffel Tower before the Paris Olympics opened on 26 July, and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics’ closing ceremony on 8 September.
But Ms Hidalgo said she wanted to keep the interlaced rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolising the five continents.
She added that the current rings – each one measuring 9m in diameter – were too heavy and would be replaced by a lighter version at some point.
The Socialist mayor also claimed that “the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the Games, and she wanted “this festive spirit to remain”.
Some Parisians as well as visitors to the French capital supported the mayor.
“The Eiffel Tower is very beautiful, the rings add colour. It’s very nice to see it like this,” a young woman, who identified herself as Solène, told the France Bleu website.
But Manon, a local resident, said this was “a really bad idea”.
“It’s a historic monument, why defile it with rings? It was good for the Olympics but now it’s over, we can move on, maybe we should remove them and return the Eiffel Tower to how it was before,” he told France Bleu.
Social media user Christophe Robin said Ms Hidalgo should have consulted Parisians before going ahead with her plan.
In a post on X, he reminded that the Eiffel Tower featured a Citroën advert in 1925-36.
The Eiffel Tower was built in1889 for the World’s Fair. The wrought-iron lattice tower was initially heavily criticised by Parisian artists and intellectuals – but is now seen by many as the symbol of the “City of Light”.
Ms Hidalgo, who has been running Paris since 2014, is known for her bold – and sometimes controversial – reforms.
Under her tenure, many city streets, including the banks of the river Seine, have been pedestrianised.
Last year, she won convincingly a city referendum to ban rental electric scooters. However, fewer than 8% of those eligible turned out to vote.
But both drivers’ groups and opposition figures attacked the scheme, saying the SUV classification was misleading as many family-size cars would be affected.
France’s Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said at the time that the surcharge amounted to “punitive environmentalism”.
And just before the Paris Olympics, Ms Hidalgo and other officials went into the Seine to prove the river was safe to swim.
-BBC
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