With international organizer AIBA still in a state of limbo, the IOC announced Wednesday that it would proceed with some changes to the boxing competition for the 2020 Olympics.
The most apparent change for spectators will be the return of the old practice of posting judges’ scores after every round, which was done in the 2012 Olympics but not in 2016, when organizers also stopped using the system of counting punches and returned to a traditional 10-point must system.
Overseeing this new approach will be a set of referees and judges who will be thoroughly vetted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and required to take courses and tests on judging and “competition manipulation.” All 36 referees and judges from the 2016 Olympics, who were suspended soon after the Games, will be ineligible.
In the years since Rio, AIBA has fallen into severe debt. The organization also appointed an interim president, Gafur Rakhimov, whom the U.S. Treasury Department described as “one of Uzbekistan’s leading criminals.” Last year, Rakhimov was the only name on the ballot for the presidency, but he resigned earlier this year in what AIBA described as “the selfless act of stepping aside in order to deal with his own personal issues.”
AIBA’s executive committee is due to meet Thursday in Switzerland after postponing an Extraordinary Congress from December 14 to March 20.
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