World Boxing Championships begins under cloud

MORE THAN 600 boxers from 118 countries, including Jamaica, will be taking part in the Men’s World Boxing Championships, which start in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, today. Promoted by the International Boxing Association (IBA), the championships will be one of the qualifying events for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.

It is not smooth sailing, however, as several countries, at last count 16, among them the United States, Great Britain and Canada, have announced that they will not be participating.

The main reason for the abstentions is the allowance of Russian and Belarusian boxers’ inclusion in the championships under their countries’ names and flags. Some countries wanted them banned completely from participation because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while some would allow participation by the athletes under a neutral flag. Neither option was accepted, however.

US LEAVING IBA

There was another major development last week, when the United States not only pulled out of the tournament, but announced that they were withdrawing from IBA completely.

Recently, it was announced that another boxing organisation called ‘World Boxing’ is being formed to present an alternative to the IBA, but this is still in the formative stage.

IBA has denounced this as a “rogue organization’ and has threatened sanctions under its statutes, for any country that becomes a member.

Despite these developments, the tournament is proceeding, and record prize money of over US$5million will be paid to gold, silver and bronze medal winners in the 13 weight categories. Those categories run from flyweight to super-heavyweight.

Gold medal winners will each receive US$200,000, silver medal winners $100,000 and the two bronze medal winners in each weight class, $50,000 each.

Jamaica will be represented by two experienced boxers, light heavyweight Jerone Ennis and lightweight Daniel Hylton. Their coach is Gilbert Vaz and their participation was made possible through financial assistance from the IBA.

The coach has acknowledged that the competition will be keen, as their opponents will be drawn from the five continents, but their aim is to give it their all.

The preliminaries start tomorrow and go on to May 10. The semis will be on May 12 and the finals on May 14 and 15.