AIBA has taken note of the IOC Executive Board decision of 9 June in pursuit of greater gender equality at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the resultant changes to the Olympic Boxing Tournament that will see 8 men’s and 5 women’s weight categories contested. Boxing is one of the Summer Olympic sport that are a part of this gender-balancing process, a key element of the Olympic Agenda 2020, however there will be no drop in the total number of our athletes competing in Tokyo 2020 compared with Rio 2016. AIBA is proud of the central role it has played in developing women’s boxing and its introduction to the Olympic programme at London 2012, which saw the first gold medals awarded to the superb champions Nicola Adams, Katie Taylor and Claressa Shields, and fully supports the move towards gender equality. AIBA’s next step is to convene the expertise of its relevant Commissions in the coming days and open discussions regarding the optimum ways of adapting the competition structure to incorporate these changes. The Commissions’ findings will then be presented to the AIBA Executive Committee at its annual meeting in late July.

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