The International Boxing Federation (IBA) confirmed on Monday 13 March via a press release that an IOC “monitoring” team will be present at the women’s world championships, which will be held from 15 to 26 March in New Delhi, India. It will be placed under the responsibility of the international auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The women’s world event does not count in the Olympic qualification process, as the IBA was excluded from the Paris 2024 Games as it had already been for the Tokyo 2020 Games. But the body chaired by Russian Umar Kremlev explains that the PwC team will be tasked with assessing the “compliance” of its practices and the reality of its reforms. “The IBA is confident that the PwC team will see first-hand the IBA’s best practices in relation to technical and competition rules, in particular its fight review process,” the international federation said. The 2023 women’s world championships in India, like their men’s counterpart in Uzbekistan in May, will be without several major boxing nations, including the United States, Canada and Britain. They announced their decision to withdraw last month in protest at the presence of Russian boxers under their own flags and colours, but also to express their defiance of the body’s governance. A delegation of twelve Russian athletes will be present at the Women’s World Championships starting this week.
