Boxing is in turmoil. There is talk about referees, the question of women’s eligibility and the suspended professional association.
Hard blow: Hungarian Anna Hamori (r.) was still able to prevail against Gráinne Walsh Photo: imago
Boxing delivers. Big stories, small dramas, epic battles and countless scandals. Anyone who takes a quick look at the Arena Paris Nord, where the boxing competitions are taking place in the first week of the Olympic tournament, will find plenty to marvel at.
It starts in the first few rounds. The Hungarian Anna Hamori runs excitedly through the hall as if she doesn’t know where the boxing ring is. Half an hour later, she is standing in the stands with her family, cheering and can hardly believe that she has just won her fight against the Irishwoman Gráinne Walsh, who has already won two bronze medals in European championships.
Meanwhile, Italian heavyweight Aziz Abbes Mouhiidine stands stunned in the mixed zone and complains about the judges. They had seen his opponent, the Uzbek Lazizbek Mullojonow, as stronger, even though the Italian had literally beaten him in the final round.
“Once again, Italy has been robbed,” Flavio D’Ambrosi would later complain in a scathing letter to the International Olympic Committee. “We thought the IOC would protect the boxers from all the horrors of the past. But nothing has changed.”
The outfits of the coaches who supervise the Cuban boxing team during their fights in the corner are also unchanged. In their shiny blue uniforms, they look like time travelers from the heyday of Cuban martial arts. On this day, they push Julio César La Cruz past the four Cuban journalists who have set up in the mixed zone, dumbfounded.
The heavyweight Olympic champion from Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, who had traveled to Paris with the declared goal of winning gold for the third time, was actually eliminated from the tournament after his first fight. A boxer from Cuba still made it through. La Cruz’s opponent, Loren Alfonso, who will be competing for Azerbaijan in Paris, was born in Havana.
Culture war in women’s sport
Four days later, the Algerian Imane Khelif, seeded fifth in the weight class up to 66 kg, entered the ring. Less than 50 seconds later, she had already won the fight. Her opponent Angela Carini had thrown in the towel and thus become the heroine of a cultural battle for women’s sport.
Activists, for whom nothing seems more important than keeping transgender people away from women’s sports, have flooded social media with posts declaring the Algerian’s participation in the Olympic tournament the biggest scandal of the Games.
Khelif, like Taiwan’s Lin Yu‑Ting, had been eliminated from the World Championships the previous year. Tests had been carried out and the organisers had decided that it would be wrong to allow the two to take part in a women’s competition.
At the Olympics, however, they are allowed to compete because, according to their passports, they are women, as the IOC announced. How it is possible that a man can compete against women in boxing, of all things, was the question in Paris that was sent across the Internet hundreds of thousands of times.
In no other Olympic sport do the rules at the Olympics differ fundamentally from those in regular international competitions. After all, it is the professional associations recognized by the IOC that organize the Olympic competitions. But in boxing, things are different.
There is an association there too. But the International Boxing Association (IBA) was expelled by the IOC, among other things because it could not explain where the huge sums of prize money come from that it distributes to boxers at its events and which suggest total dependence on the Russian state-owned company Gazprom.
The Russian president of the IBA, Umar Kremlev, had secured the support of the majority of the national associations with far-reaching financial promises and when a rival candidate was put forward, he prevented new elections. This is also one of the many reasons why the IOC no longer wants to work with the IBA.
The association was also still dragging the big referee scandal from Rio de Janeiro in 2016 behind it. Russian fighters were obviously favored, while athletes from the USA and Ireland were systematically disadvantaged beyond what is typical for boxing.
Alternative association stands up
Even before the games in Tokyo three years ago, it was the IOC itself that organized the Olympic qualification, as well as the Olympic competitions. This is the case again this year. And it was only because of this that different rules for the admission of female athletes were in place in Paris than under the aegis of Kremlev’s IBA. There will be a lot of debate about whether this is right, just as it should be for a boxing tournament.
It could be the last one at the Olympic Games. There are fears that there will be no boxing tournament at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. In fact, the IOC has put boxing on the back burner for the time being when deciding on the sports program in Los Angeles.
Of all places, there should be no boxing tournament at the Olympics in the USA? You might think that’s unthinkable, thinking back to the great old days of boxing. Perhaps the most famous athlete the world has ever produced was a boxer. Cassius Clay, the man who would later call himself Muhammad Ali, began his incredible career at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. And now the end?
It won’t come to that. Michael Müller, the sports director of the German Boxing Association, is convinced of that. “No, no, we will manage it,” he says on the edge of the Olympic ring.
We are the new international association that is determined to achieve Olympic honours. It is called World Boxing and was founded in Frankfurt at the end of last year. The Dutchman Boris van der Voorst was elected president, the man who was Umar Kremlev’s opponent in the failed election of the association’s top management in the IBA.
A sophisticated statute can be found on the association’s website with just a few clicks. It is “very democratic,” says Müller, “and has been checked by Swiss lawyers.” The new association is supposed to stand for transparency and good governance. Independent institutions are supposed to monitor this. It is clearly an alternative to the IBA. Will the wicked boxing finally be OK?
Russian Kremlev throws money around
37 national associations have already joined. More than 50 have already knocked on the door and want to go down the new path, reports Müller, who is a member of the executive board of World Boxing. He is quite certain that other nations will follow.
Kremlev, however, is not giving up and is doing what has made him so irresistible to many associations: He is throwing money around. Although he officially has nothing to do with the Olympic tournament, he has offered bonuses for the best. He wants to pay $100,000 to each Olympic champion, $50,000 to the losers in the final and €25,000 to all bronze medalists.
And while Kremlev is trying to use mafia methods to bind the boxing associations to himself, World Boxing is trying to organize transparent training and installation for the fighters and referees. The first junior world championship has been announced. It is to take place in Pueblo, Colorado in the fall. Interest is high, says Müller, as it is also a “top destination” in the USA. The future of boxing cannot do without reminiscences of the sport’s great US past.
And the German Boxing Association cannot survive without Olympic status. Only the Olympic associations have the opportunity to reach the highest level of funding in Germany. That means money from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Sport. If Olympic status is lost, the money that has been used to pay trainers, association employees and training camps will be cut. Boxing is fighting for its Olympic status and the German Boxing Association is fighting for its existence.
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Umar Kremlev will hardly be interested in the latter. The ex-rocker, who once caused a ruckus with Putin’s Night Wolves on two wheels, is currently commenting on Instagram with relish on the dispute over Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting’s participation in the Olympic tournament. A super macho who understands women and fights for “the integrity of sport”.
He wants to overthrow IOC President Thomas Bach, as he announced in a new video. After the “sodomy” he claims to have seen at the opening ceremony in Paris, he presents himself as a guardian of traditional values. He calls on all associations to remain loyal to him and to take part in the Friendship Games next year, a kind of counter-Olympics organized by Russia.
Meanwhile, Imane Khelif’s next fight is scheduled for the Olympic boxing hall. The draw meant that she will face the Hungarian Anna Hamori, who beamed after her first-round victory. After the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a head of government, commented on the case and described the Algerian’s admission as unfair, the Hungarian fighter has involuntarily become the protagonist of a true state affair. That is a lot, even for boxing.
