With geopolitics in play, the IBA has made the IOC look ridiculous in the row about the women’s competition
Olympic boxing has had the occasional moment of heat and light down the years. There have been walk-outs and sit-ins and judging funks. The Cuba-USA face-offs have been good value. More often boxing is a distant presence at the big summer fair, hived off on an outer table like a low-ranking uncle, staged in some echoey hall, crammed in between the big ticket events.
At which point: welcome to Paris 2024. We aren’t just through the looking glass here, but through quite a few of them, simultaneously, with no obvious way back. Welcome to Olympic boxing as hostile geopolitics, as a theatre of the global pile-on, a place where hugely important issues that actually affect people’s lives are translated into macro-opportunism and sabre rattling at one remove.