There are separate tournaments for each weight division in the Olympic boxing competition, making it one of the more “traditional” Olympic sports. Over time, there has been an increase in the number of weight categories (currently eight for men and five for women).
Overall, the United States has won 114 medals (50 gold, 24 silver, and 40 bronze) at these games, with Cuba in second place and Great Britain in third (56 medals).
As of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the International Boxing Association (AIBA) and the International Olympic Committee made the decision to remove the requirement that male competitors wear protective headgear (IOC).
Will Professional Boxers Compete at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?
The 2016 Rio Summer Games saw the introduction of a number of new regulations, including the mandatory use of protective headgear. Professional boxers have been eligible for Olympic competition for the past five years.
After hearing presentations from 84 of the 88 delegates at an extraordinary congress in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2016, the national federations voted to include professional boxers.
Professional athletes have been included in the Olympics before. The 1992 U.S. “Dream Team,” the first to feature NBA players, won the gold medal and humiliated every other team in the tournament.
The Reasons Why Professional Boxers don’t Enter the Olympics
Top-tier boxers typically opt out of the Olympics for a variety of reasons. When compared to professional boxing in the United States, Olympic boxing is played by a different set of rules, including a reduced number of rounds, a different method of scoring those rounds, and a lower standard of competitiveness. This is why professional boxers don’t feel confident enough to compete in the Olympics.
The possibility of injury is another consideration, as their physical condition is crucial to their success and that of their teams. Despite boxing’s reputation as an undercard sport at the Olympics, competitors must be in peak physical condition to have any chance of winning gold and impressing the crowd.
Forget about the risk of injury and the lost income in their professional careers, top professional boxers may earn millions of dollars in a fight, numbers they can only dream of in the Olympic event.
