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Sports correspondent & historian with |
The Olympic dream for New Zealand boxers, has returned to be the ultimate goal, after seemingly being taken away due to continued corruption in the sport.
Boxing dates back to the original Olympic sports in ancient Greece, which also included running, long jump, shot put, javelin and chariot races.
However widespread corruption via bout manipulation at the 2016 Rio Olympics saw the IOC remove boxing from Olympic competition.
New Zealand has a proud tradition in Olympic boxing, having won gold, silver and two bronze medals, since Charley Purdy contested the featherweight class at the 1932 Olympics in Paris.
Few New Zealand sports fans are aware that our country's first Olympic Gold medal was won by Kiwi boxer Ted Morgan at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.
Kevin Barry Jnr secured a Silver medal in Los Angeles in 1984, with David Tua and David Nyika earning Bronze medallions, in 1992 and 2021 respectively.
The growth of the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) in the sixties and seventies, saw potential officeholders trade votes for tournament hosting rights and favourable bout outcomes.
During my time on the Boxing New Zealand National Executive some two decades ago, the BNZ executive would decide on New Zealand's voting stance before each annual AIBA Congress, knowing that the outcomes had already been decided by the ruling cartel.
There were rumours and unfathomable decisions around Olympic qualifying bouts, including our own David Nyika, leading into the 2016 Olympic Games.
The subsequent McLaren review of the Rio Olympics decisions, commissioned by the IOC, found that the manipulation of results was made possible because key personnel decided that the rules did not apply to them.
Once having acquired the power, the key figure in the cheating would appoint the referees and judges, who would comply with the manipulation of results.
Just when it appeared that things couldn't get worse for the future of Olympic boxing - the governing body changed its name to the International Boxing Association (IBA) and appointed a Russian as the IBA President.
The IOC first suspended the IBA in 2019 due to governance and financial transparency issues.
In June 2023, the IOC voted to formally revoke the recognition of the IBA because of lack of progress on addressing governance, financial and corruption problems. IBA became the first international federation to be expelled from the Olympic movement.
With Olympic participation seemingly taken away from the sport after the 2024 Olympics, a group of European and North American boxing federation’s along with Australia and New Zealand, formed a new governance body.
World Boxing was formed in April 2023 to ensure that boxing remained at the heart of the Olympic movement. It sought to seek recognition from the International Olympic Committee.
The plan was to work to develop a pathway that would preserve boxing's ongoing place on the competition program at Los Angeles 2028 and beyond.
World Boxing worked hard to be recognised as the parent body of amateur boxing, and in early 2025 had 84 National Federation members, spread over five continents.
In March 2025 World Boxing received provisional recognition from the IOC.
The future now again seems secure for New Zealand boxers who qualify to test their skills on the Olympic stage.