Professional boxers permitted to compete at Rio Games

Yesterday AIBA ruled that any boxer will be allowed to participate in the upcoming Rio Olympics if they qualify, according to a landslide vote.

Members of AIBA, at an extraordinary congress in Lausanne, Switzerland voted resoundingly by 84 votes with 4 abstentions in favor of the admission of professionals at Olympic boxing tournaments.

Seven Pakistani boxers will compete in the last qualifying rounds in Baku, Azerbaijan, but they stand little chance of reaching the Rio Games.

In theory, this could mean actual world champions in professional boxing could be pitted against relatively inexperienced amateur boxers at this year’s games, which could be quite unsafe in the eyes of some.

Indian boxer Vijender Singh turned pro in late 2015, and has taken victory in each of his six professional bouts so far.

Wu also admitted it was “difficult to anticipate” how many pro fighters would compete in Rio, but said that it was every athlete’s right to compete in the Olympics.

That, of course, hasn’t curbed the criticism of AIBA’s move by those who believe that allowing professionals to compete in a combat sport against amatuers is quite risky.

Former heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson had come out as a vocal critic of the rule change prior to Wednesday’s vote. They’re two different sports.

“I am not sure whether they should do it, they just seem to be trying something new”, said the 25-year-old.

“We have tremendous change, a lot of effort”, Wu said, adding that all boxers in Rio would comply with WADA testing standards ahead of the games.

“London didn’t go well but I’ve learned from it and I’m going to go there and enjoy it and see what happens”.

There will be 26 Olympics slots available across the ten men’s Olympic divisions at this tournament which was originally due to cater for boxers who qualified via two other competitions, the World Boxing series and the AIBA’s own professional tournament called the APB.

The British Amateur Boxing Association (BABA), however, is not expected to consider the selection of professional fighters for the Games.

“It was discussed a couple of months ago and Joseph’s sole intention is to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world”, Stanaway said. ‘These guys are going to be fast for three rounds, four rounds. I think they will reconsider after they let this slide and I think it is a bad, bad idea.