AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 7
IABA. IOC. Governing bodies, and Olympic standards. Join us on our on-going exploration of the Olympics, to be held in Tokyo 2021, featuring Christian from the Friday Night Panel, and the route to the ring. Watch TalkinFight weekdays at 12, 4, 7, and 8:30pm EST on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live @Olympic @IOC Media @Abroad in Japan
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Transcribed:
Hello talking fight fans around the world, welcome to another episode featuring christian from the friday night panel and his ongoing discussion and exploration related to the olympics to be scheduled for this july in japan.
Tokyo to be specific.
What have you found out today for us christian? Well, we’ve got more ongoing repercussions of the ioc’s decision to uh cancel the world qualifying tournament, so, okay, so most of you know, uh will remove these most people.
Remember that back in 2019, the international olympic committee stripped the aiba of its right to organize the olympic boxing tournament at tokyo and, as we mentioned just this past friday, the commonwealth games federation is following suit and will be establishing a boxing task force of their own.
To administer the boxing tournament at those games and that’s due to be held in birmingham england next year.
Well, the aiba, which has been quite for the most part uh, is actually speaking out now against the ioc’s.
Most recent decision to cancel the world qualifier in paris.
The international boxing association or aiba has questioned the ioc’s decision to cancel the boxing world qualifiers for this year’s olympics.
Saying that the plan saying that the plan to instead allocate quotas based on rankings would deprive several young boxers of a chance to gun for a spot.
At tokyo, the international olympic committee uh boxing task force, which is in charge of conducting both the qualifiers, as well as the main event for the sport at tokyo, has decided to cancel the world qualifier and push the european qualifier.
As we’ve talked about a little earlier.
Uh from april back to june, in view of the coven 19 restrictions restrictions that are happening globally at the moment, so the aibi is suspended by the ioc uh bacca, as i mentioned earlier, for alleged administrative as well as financial mismanagement, has said that it would be Possible to still conduct the event and thought that more and says that more thought should have been given to figure out a way to conduct the event.
A statement from the aiba reads that while we respect the decision of our colleagues from the ioc tax task force, it is important for us to find boxing in the olympic program and fulfill the olympic dream of our athletes.
However, we believe that it is possible to rate to retain the qualifiers.
The aiba statement went on to say we welcome the health and the care of our athletes, coaches and officials.
This is also a priority of ours in a pi in this pandemic situation, and in this challenging time the aiba strives to host as many tournaments as possible in compliance with all safety measures.
It added that the ioc’s 53 vacant olympic slots for the july august games would be filled using a system that would take that would not take into consideration, for my pledge would only take into consideration uh rankings and performances at tournaments.
That have happened over the past.
Several years, the aiba said that nothing, this is nothing short of a blow for younger athletes, as youth performances would end up being ignored.
So the ranking system compiled on the basis of key tournaments over the past several years will not take into account youth competitions.
So this means that uh young boxers anyone born in 2001 or 2002 are going to be deprived of a chance to compete at tokyo and fulfill that dream.
A qualification tournament would be a more objective way to qualify for the olympics.
The situation with the division of quotas by continent is a fair and democratic system only in theory.
In practice it is not so much.
The aiba also questioned the postponement of the european qualifiers and said that the move will have a negative impact on training of athletes.
Saying that boxers, who have been left in limbo for a year now, will not be able to build up their training process in the best possible way and that this is going to affect the quality of the pursuit participants that we see at the olympic tournament.
Or so they’ve reasoned.
So graham, this is an angle that i at least had not i’m not sure if you had uh considered and that being how this is going to affect young athletes.
Who would perhaps this might have been a first games that they were going into it’s a new way that this they’ve been kind of postponed or put back or just canceled at this point, for this particular olympiad thoughts? Ah, but i mean other than uh feeling sorry for those guys who are quote automatically disqualified because they can’t qualify, which is based on age yeah.
That is, i’m kind of left speechless, um yeah.
What can we do? Well, there’s not a whole lot that can be done at this point, uh we and it’s.
The argument could easily be made that these are young guys.
These guys have, you know, maybe two or three more olympics ahead of them, because you know if you were born in 2001, 2002 you’re just coming out of the youth system.
Theoretically, you’ve got your whole career ahead of you at this point in time.
So this could just be viewed as a setback as opposed to a massive blow, but as we’ve already seen with uh, you know we, our friends in nigeria, we’ve been talking a little bit about last week.
Their their head coach is already having a hard time convincing.
His amateur athletes to stay in the amateur system now because this olympics has been taken off the table for them right and it’s not like young guys at their first olympics, can’t take home uh medals either.
So the fact that we’re maybe missing out on some younger fighters doesn’t mean that we’re not missing out on some bigger talents out there as well.
I think the youngest ever to take home a medal was a gold medal.
Was jackie shields back in 1924.
I think it was uh.
He was only 16 years old when he took home a gold medal so age.
You know we might be seeing some of these savant, like talents coming out right now that we’re now going to be deprived of that olympiad.
Based on this rule, change as well, so the aiba may have a point here.
Yeah, i mean i’m going in a couple of directions on this one, one i’m just thinking of the various other categories of sport in the olympics and, generally speaking, it’s not young people who compete as idealistic as we may think.
I don’t think you know take take a look at whether it be weight, lifting there’s, no young guys who compete in that or shop pudding or you know even track and field, and it’s not young guys who win it takes years and years of dedication and maturation.
Anyway, well, you see some natural talents.
When you talk about track and field, you look at the usain bolts.
You look at the you know the grass uh.
I can’t think of his first name off the top of my head there, but uh you are natural.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah from canada, there’s some great talents out there that you do see coming in at a very young age and early on in olympics yeah.
I don’t know whether the truth is uh.
It’S the same is true for boxing.
That’S all i just don’t know how much talent we are being as fans we are being deprived of with this, and you never will that’s changing.
Never will all right.
Thank you.
No that’s a good point.
That’S the big argument there you shouldn’t be laughing at it but uh.
Whoever said it was fair.
Whoever said it’s democratic, i mean as long as i don’t know.
As long as i can remember, there’s always been someone complaining about something with respect to the olympics.
The big argument at this point in time, though, is that half the globe got their qualifiers and the other half were still up in the air.
Whether that’s going to happen if everyone had already had the regional qualifiers – and it was only the world tournament that was really up in the air – i know that’s what the only thing they’re really talking about right now, but if that was the only one up in The air, then it would be easier to say, hey guys, what are we gon na? Do it’s a pandemic? This is the best way forward, but the fact that there’s still the possibility that there could be more shenanigans with respect to the americas qualifiers, as well as the european qualifier phase b of that or phase two, whatever they’re calling it.
It leaves everything up in the air which really kind of makes us wonder how this is going to move forward, and the aba, i think, has a really good point based on the fact that there are still international boxing tournaments that are happening.
We spoke uh last week or the end of the week before, with andertoth and budapest about the box guy.
That was happening there uh, as i mentioned last week as well, the kremlov, the new head of the aiba, was in serbia last week, sitting down with the uh the head of state over there to discuss the upcoming men’s world uh.
The men’s world championships, i believe, are having held in belgrade in november, so these they’re already planning international tournaments international tournaments are happening right now.
So to say now we absolutely can’t hold an olympic uh world qualifier.
Well, at the same time, all these other ones are happening theoretically safely, fingers crossed for the athletes and organizers that they do go ahead safely, but the fact that they they are happening at all and that the olympics are going.
Oh there’s just no way.
We could possibly do this, so we’re gon na have to uh.
Just how many do you want? Okay, we’ll give you know 10 for you, 10, for you, 10 for you and just start handing out based on old rankings that don’t take into account the current picture.
Necessarily, you know you could see guys getting into the olympics, who had you know a great 2017 2018 and then have been.
You know kind of on a downward trend since then might be looking at olympic births now, based on earlier successes and guys that are doing well, who deserve a spot, not seeing those.
So it’s just frustrating the hell out of me at this point in time that we’re seeing successes happening in the world of boxing when it comes to carrying on these tournaments.
Well, theoretically, one of the largest organizations in the world, the olympia, the international olympic committee, can’t seem to get their act together.
So how much of that is based on the fact that we’re dealing with this ad hoc olympic boxing task force, as opposed to letting the aiba organize it, and how much of it is just straight down to the cove pandemic and there’s nothing we can do about It, i don’t think we’re being told the whole picture here.
Uh i’d agree and i think, upon reflection.
During this conversation, i would have to argue that this is the difference between uh professional groups and amateur groups.
The people who run the amateur groups are still getting paid.
The guys who are running the professional groups recognize they need tournaments in order to feed their families.
Uh, to be blunt uh you know so did the amateur groups really need these tournaments to take place? No, and so i’m just being incredibly cynical about it and saying wow, there may be something deeper and it’s just purely bureaucratic.
In other words, these guys who run these amateur organizations uh they’re, not amateur per se, they’re still getting a paycheck every week.
Well, yeah.
We’Ve talked a little bit about how much money the us olympic committee is pulling in on an annual basis just based on television within the united states, uh alone, broadcast rights were in the hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis, so you’re right yeah.
These guys, these guys do have money at the at the end of the day, whereas the pros you’re right, if promoters, don’t promote they’re, not getting paid right.
So that would, in my opinion, balance of why we’re still seeing tournaments happen, uh on a professional level and why someone might have the ease of ability to simply cancel an amateur tournament because he’s still getting or she’s still getting paid.
And it does not matter to them one way or the other whether that tournament takes place at an amateur level.
Having said that, i go back to what zuhiri ibrahim said to us on the friday night panel, and that is that whole boys to men issue in boxing uh.
He wasn’t too much of a fan of the olympics, just given the fact that there were too many young guys at that level competing and were they truly the best in the world, not really well, i mean to get to the olympics.
I would have to argue that you do have to be the best in the world at that.
You know within that you know your age groups within your weight class and again, when we’re talking pros versus amateurs.
We’Ve done this a few times.
It’S two different sports at the end of the day and there’s a reason we don’t see a lot of guys floating back and forth.
Why we hear them about the nigerians who not only very much like you just talked about had their entire olympics kind of stolen.
On red tape, when the government ministry wouldn’t release funds for them to go to the qualifiers because they quote unquote, couldn’t justify their attendance at an olympic qualifier, even though it was the olympic national team, they were talking about.
So we’ve seen red tape already take them out and the fact that the head coach is trying so hard not to have his uh fighters go.
Pro is based largely on the fact that we’ve talked about many different fighters about this too.
The training are just two completely different: um training, regimens, just the the thought process, the mentality.
The goal is completely different when we’re talking about points and speed versus knocking the other guy out in terms like ring general manship that you’re going to be scored on.
In a professional bout, so you really do have to change your entire tactic around so once you kind of make that decision to go pro, you don’t see a lot of these guys coming back successfully into the amateur world, so bureaucracy is uh, is kind of getting In the way of all of this and we’re going to be losing out on what could have been the best in the world, so to argue with raheem best in the world at that amateur level is not going to be the same yeah.
They can’t step into the ring in a probe out.
It’S two different things.
The same way, these guys can’t step backwards successfully yeah.
So i do feel bad for the young boxers who did have their sights set on competing in the olympics and are being caught in between whether it be the coveted pandemic or idiots.
Oh, it’s kind of a perfect storm.
The whole thing’s being done by committee so organized by committee and not by boxers right, yeah alrighty, so we’ll keep our eye on that.
One we’ll see if there’s any uh young, guys or other representatives who jump out of their seats and come screaming yelling through the media, and let us know that they’ve been hard done by we’ll keep our eye on it, but there’s nothing.
We can do no.
No just uh scanning the headlines and uh trying to get a better idea and give you guys a better idea of what the olympic picture is going to look like once.
It finally gets here and that’s still a ways off.
Unfortunately, until we actually see these qualifiers that are remaining again happen, believe him when i see him at this point true true.
Well, thanks very much christian appreciate your thoughts, uh thanks, good viewership up there.
I appreciate all your likes and comments and that subscriptions are increasing on a daily basis, love it and if you are subscribing, make sure to ring that bell and get your notifications and we’ll see you tomorrow.
Christian and we’ll see you good viewership tomorrow,
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