In just a few days, the Boxing Road to Paris 1st World Qualification Tournament will get underway in Busto Arsizio, Italy, at the E-Work Arena from 3-11 March.
An impressive lineup of 632 athletes (399 men and 233 women) from 112 NOCs and the Boxing Refugee Team, as well as Individual Neutral Athletes will compete for 49 Paris 2024 Olympic quota places across 13 weight categories (7 Men’s events with 28 available quota places and 6 Women’s events with 21 available quota places).
In line with the PBU’s primary mandate, and to focus on the athletes and their road to Paris, boxers will only compete until the quota places are distributed, and no medal matches and medal ceremonies will be staged during the tournament.
The tournament will therefore run up to the quarterfinals in all weight categories (4 quota places available in each event), except for the women’s 57kg category (2 quota places available), which will run up to the semifinal stage, and the women’s 60kg category (3 quota places available), where a box-off will assign the third available quota.
Several athletes are worth keeping an eye on throughout the tournament. In the highly competitive men’s 51kg category, world-renowned names such as Yuberjen Martinez (COL) and Tomoya Tsuboi (JPN) will be vying for one of the 4 quota places. In the men’s 57kg category, Makhmud Sabyrkhan (KAZ) will face tough competition from Yoel Finol (VEN) and Carlo Paalam (PHI). Other standout athletes include Alexy de la Cruz (DOM), Erislandy Álvarez (CUB), Ruslan Abdullaev (UZB), and Shiva Thapa (IND). In the women’s 75kg event, Irina Schönberger (GER), Elżbieta Wójcik (POL), and Nesthy Petecio (PHI) are among the contenders aiming for Olympic qualification.
The event is organized by the Italian Local Organizing Committee (LOC) under the authority of the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU), an ad-hoc unit created by the IOC Executive Board with the mandate to organize and ensure the delivery of the Olympic Boxing Qualifying Tournaments and the Boxing Competition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. This decision followed the suspension of the Olympic recognition of the International Boxing Association (IBA) by the IOC Session in June 2019, which was subsequently withdrawn by the IOC Session in June 2023, and the announcement in June 2022 that the IBA would not run the Olympic Boxing Qualifying Tournaments and the Boxing Competition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
The 1st World Qualification Tournament follows the continental qualification phase staged throughout 2023, which saw boxers from all over the world competing and qualifying for Paris 2024 through the European Games in Krakow, Poland (44 quota places, 22 women and 22 men), the Africa Qualification Tournament in Dakar, Senegal (18 quota places, 11 women and 7 men), the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China (34 quota places, 20 women and 14 men), the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile (30 quota places, 16 women and 14 men), and the Pacific Games in Honiara, Solomon Islands (13 quota places, 6 women and 7 men).
Following Busto Arsizio’s, a second World Qualification Tournament will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, in May. Only National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that have not yet qualified an athlete in a specific weight category via the respective continental qualification event are allowed to enter one athlete per weight category.
Stay connected for the latest updates, photos, and results, available on the Athlete 365 Boxing Corner website at boxing.athlete365.org and follow the action on www.olympics.com
