Paris 2024 Olympic Games: calendar, date, location, history… Everything you need to know about boxing

European Games 2023: Boxing MAXPPP – Mickael Chavet

Before the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11), discover the instructions for all the disciplines. Focus on boxing.

The origins

Boxing has been on the Olympic program since Antiquity (pugilism).

The opponents protected their fists with soft leather straps. In 1745, the Englishman Jack Broughton, "father" of modern boxing, began to codify the discipline, a work completed in 1867 by the Marquis of Queensberry.

Boxing appeared at the Olympic Games in St. Louis (United States) in 1904 and has subsequently always appeared on the Olympic program with the exception of the Stockholm Games in 1912. Women's boxing made its debut in London in 2012.

JO Paris 2024 : pourquoi certains sports comme la boxe ou le judo décernent 4 médailles
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— Le Parisien | JO 🥇 (@leparisien2024) July 5, 2024

Until then reserved for amateurs, the Games opened up to professionals from 2016 in Rio. Many Olympic champions have become stars among the pros.

The most emblematic are the Americans Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Mohamed Ali (who fought at the Rome Games in 1960 when he was still called Cassius Clay), Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Sugar Ray Leonard , the Ukrainians Vladimir Klitschko and Oleksandr Usyk and the Canadian Lennox Lewis.

The Trials

13 categories (7 male, 6 female), different from the professional categories.

Men: fly (-51kg), feather (-57kg), light (- 63.5 kg), welterweight (-71 kg), light heavyweight (-80 kg), heavyweight (-92 kg), super heavyweight (+  92 kg).

Women: fly (-50kg), rooster (-54kg), feather (- 57 kg), lightweight (-60 kg), welterweight (-66 kg), medium (-75 kg).

The rules

The fights take place in three rounds of 3 minutes, the winner being declared by knockout or on points by decision of the judges.

If a boxer is knocked down and fails to get up before the referee's 10-second countdown, the fight ends in a knockout. Otherwise, one of the two fighters is declared victorious on points.

The winner of each round gets ten points and the loser gets between seven and nine points depending on their performance.

A referee can decide to stop a fight at any time if he considers that a boxer is no longer able to continue.

Women keep the protective helmet which disappeared among men in Rio in 2016.

The competition

Format: knockout tournament.

The winner of the final wins gold, the runner-up silver and the two semi-final losers each win a bronze medal. Each nation can present a maximum of one athlete per weight category.

Event dates

The boxing events will take place from July 27 to August 10, but there will be no event on August 5.

Venues

The first part of the tournament will take place at the Arena Paris Nord located in Villepinte (northwest of Paris).

Starting August 6, the fights will continue at the Stade Roland-Garros.

Boxing on an Olympic strapontin

Olympic boxing has been rocked for several years by a conflict between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Federation (IBA), which threatens the short-term future of boxing at the Olympic Games.

In June 2023, after four years of dispute, the IOC officially banned the IBA from its fold, accusing it in particular of problems governance, repeated arbitration scandals and its continued financial dependence on the Russian giant Gazprom.

As a result, the IBA has definitively lost the organization of the Olympic boxing tournaments and the IOC is threatening to withdraw boxing from the 2028 Olympics program if no international body replaces the IBA.