Women's boxing can make Olympic debut at Beijing
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-28 10:23

India can hope for its first ever Olympic medal in boxing should the efforts of International Boxing Association (AIBA) to include women's boxing in the 2008 Beijing Games succeed.

India, who are ranked second in Asia and fifth in the world in women's boxing, can rest their hopes on M C Marycom (46kg), the reigning world and Asian champion for the laurel after AIBA President Anwar Chowdhry said that AIBA and the International Olympic Committee have agreed in principle that the women boxing would be part of the next Olympic Games 2008.

"The IOC and AIBA in principle have agreed to induct women boxing in the next Olympiad," Chowdhry told PTI from Pakistan.

"Though there are still many details to be worked out, which would be done in October or December this year, when we will summon the AIBA executive committee meeting and finalise all these crucial issues," he added.

An AIBA delegation comprising Chowdhry, its Secretary General Caner Dogenali and Executive Committee member Shakeel Durrani recently met IOC President Jacques Rogge and Director Sports Fairweather at Lausanne, Switzerland and discussed various matters pertaining to boxing in the Beijing Olympics.

Chowdhry, said the major hitch in introducing the women's categories was that the IOC chief wanted to compromise with the number of weight categories in men's event so that berths for the women's boxers could be accommodated.

The IOC chief has proposed that they reduce few weight categories in men's while he would increase some quota of boxing to include female boxing as they (IOC) had fixed the limit of 10500 athletes in the next Olympic Games. "Two weights in men's boxing could be omitted and four weights for women's boxing be included," Rogge said.

"But we did not agree with the proposal to slash the half number of men boxing's berths and asked that the boxing's quota should be increased to accommodate women boxing in the mega event.

"The AIBA executive committee will decide as to how many berths and weight categories should be allocated for female competition," Chowdhry, who is also Chairman of Pakistan Boxing Federation, said.

He said the AIBA also got the permission from the IOC for live scoring of bout to be displayed on scoreboard and to install two rings in the Olympic Games for the preliminary rounds.

"Everybody in the arena and even the two boxers involved in the bout can see their score during the course of bout in the next Olympic Games at Beijing," he said.

"The AIBA want to complete the boxing competition in ten days instead of 15 days as it is too long and hectic for officials and boxers. In Seoul Olympics 1988, two rings were used but it had created confusion as the boxing gymnasium was small and after that Olympics only one ring was used.

"Now, we want to have two rings as the gymnasium in Beijing is very wide and using two rings would facilitate the smooth holding of preliminary rounds while one ring would be used for knock-out stage bouts," he said.

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