The Rio Olympics just became a bit more interesting. Top professional boxers will become eligible to compete in this summer’s Rio Olympics under radical new proposals being pushed through by the sport’s world governing body, AIBA.
via ESPN:
AIBA president, Dr Ching-Kuo Wu, has indicated that the last remaining barriers preventing fulltime professionals competing in the Games are set to be abolished within a matter of months.
In an interview with Press Association Sport, Wu said:
“We want the best boxers to come to the Olympic Games. It is AIBA’s 70th birthday, and we want something to change — not after four years, but now.
“It is an IOC policy to have the best athletes in the Games, and of the international federations, AIBA is probably the only one without professional athletes in the Olympics.
“We already have our own professionals, APB and WSB boxers, in the Games – [and] we will go further.”
Pressed on whether the change could realistically be made in time to affect eligibility for the Rio Olympics this summer, Wu replied: “According to our statutes it is absolutely possible.”
Despite the qualifying process for Rio already being well underway, the intention is clearly to change the rules in time to give each individual national federation the opportunity to select whomever they want in time to join the remainder of the procedure.
Theoretically that could mean a superstar like Floyd Mayweather turning up Rio in search of the Olympic gold medal he felt he was unfairly denied in Atlanta in 1996.
