Boxing

Boxing was contested at the Ancient Olympic Games and many other sporting festivals in Ancient Greece. Boxing was then an even more brutal sport, as the combatants wore leather thongs on their hands. Originally, the thongs were simple straps of leather, but later they were reinforced with sharp pieces of metal, and the glove was called a cestus. The first known Ancient Olympic boxing champion was Onomastos, of Smyrna, who won in 688 BCE and 684 BCE. The last known was Varasdates, of Armenia, in 369 CE, who was one of the last known champions of the Ancient Olympic Games. Professional boxing has been around since the early 18th century, with a recognized list of professional champions dating from the late 1700s.

Boxing made its first Olympic appearance at St. Louis 1904. All the entrants were Americans, and the event doubled as the AAU Championships for that year. Boxing was again contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. In 1912, boxing could not be on the Olympic Programme because the sport required special permits in Sweden at that time. Since 1920, boxing has been on the programme of every Olympic Games.

The United States was originally the premier nation in Olympic boxing. In the last 40 years, it has been surpassed, by first the Soviet Union and, more recently, by Cuba. However, as of 2024, the USA still leads the medal table with 118 medals and 50 golds, followed by Cuba, with 80 medals and 42 golds.

Three male boxers have won three Olympic gold medals: László Papp from Hungary, and Teófilo Stevenson and Félix Savón, of Cuba. Great Britain’s Nicola Adams, American Claressa Shields, and Ireland’s Kellie Harrington lead the women’s classification, all with two golds. China’s Li Qian is the only female boxer with three Olympic medals, one of each color.

A number of Olympic boxers have gone on to become professional World Champions, notably Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali), George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Volodymyr Klychko, Oscar De La Hoya, and Lennox Lewis.

Amateur boxing is governed by the International Boxing Association (IBA), which was originally called the Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur (AIBA), founded on 29 and 30 November 1946. Although the name change happened in 2007, the association still used the acronym AIBA until December 2021, when it was rebranded to IBA. As of 2024, the IBA has 198 national federations as members (including six provisional members).

AIBA succeeded the Fédération Internationale de Boxe Amateur (FIBA), which had been founded on 24 August 1920 in Antwerpen, during the Olympics, with eleven founding members: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States. Before having its own organization, boxing was governed together with tug-of-war, weight throwing, weightlifting, and wrestling in the Amateur Athleten Weltunion (1905-1907), and later in the Internationaler Weltverband für Schwerathletik (1913-1920).

After a years-long dispute fueled by defying advice and instructions from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Boxing Association was banished from the Olympic Family on 22 June 2023. The dispute centered on the IBA’s management under presidents from Uzbekistan and Russia who the IOC disapproved of, its finances being backed by Russian state energy firm Gazprom, plus the integrity of bouts and judging. Nevertheless, the sport still appeared at Paris 2024, with the IOC serving as the sport’s governing body during the Olympics. Despite its long Olympic history, boxing was still not on the programme for Los Angeles 2028 until the formal recognition of new govening body World Boxing by the IOC in 2024.