Two new recruits for World Boxing. The international boxing body, rival of the IBA, announces the membership of two new countries: Japan and Algeria. With these two arrivals, World Boxing now has 44 national federations on five continents. It has added seven since the end of the Paris 2024 Games, with Japan and Algeria joining five other new members who have left the IBA in recent weeks: Taipei, Pakistan, Bhutan, Fiji and Ecuador. For World Boxing, these two new allies are not the least. Japan is indeed joining the body chaired by the Dutchman Boris van der Vorst despite the decision of the Asian Boxing Confederation, on August 31, to remain loyal to the IBA. Its federation is therefore dissociating itself from a position of the continent adopted after a vote. As for Algeria, the controversy at the Paris 2024 Games surrounding its boxer Imane Khelif (photo above), gold medalist in the under 66 kilos category, has further strained ties between the IOC and the IBA.
