Dear members,

Please be advised, over the last number of weeks, several discussions and meetings have been conducted via zoom with Paul McDermott from Sport Ireland, Peter Hogan and James Lavelle from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, the IABA CEO, President, H.P. Director, Operations Manager and Hon Secretary, with regards to a return to full contact training and competition for Elite Boxers. Unfortunately, during protracted discussions, it was confirmed that the Elite Championships planned to take place in January 2021, must now be rescheduled.

The Return to Sport Expert Group, which includes Sport Ireland and Government representatives, recognised the great work which has been conducted by boxing clubs over the last 10 months.

Further, they acknowledged the frustration being felt throughout our sport due to current restrictions associated to Covid-19. The Department officials and Sport Ireland were extremely complimentary in relation to the vast body of excellent work which has been conducted to prepare the provisions and protocols submitted by IABA to the Expert Group, which they expressed as being of the highest standard.

Despite this endorsement and numerous attempts by members representing the IABA to push for a return to meaningful training and the return of competitive boxing in January 2021.

It was made clear that at this present time, given the current government restrictions and the high likelihood of a January 2021 post-Christmas spike, that no amount of provisions or protocols would be sufficient to mitigate the anticipated restriction levels in January.

The Chair of the Expert Group, Peter Hogan, gave a strong undertaking that they would fully support the IABA’s efforts to run our Elite Championships as soon as possible in 2021. He also outlined their hope that in January 2021, the Government would be exploring additional amendments to the current restrictions with the intention that it would assist sporting organisations to return to meaningful training and potentially allow for the return of competition at certain levels.

The IABA outlined the time frame for Olympic qualification and the necessity for the Championships to take place prior to the next Olympic qualifier in April. It was agreed that additional talks would take place early in January with the intention of establishing a plan which would allow athletes the time to prepare for an Elite championship and for the competition to take place in advance of the scheduled Olympic qualifier in April.

It is with an extremely heavy heart that we must deliver this news which comes as another body blow to amateur boxing, following what has been arguably the toughest period the sport has endured in living memory. However, we wanted to present our membership with this information in as timely a fashion as possible and in turn allowing our boxers/coaches to alter their training over the Christmas period until more clarity is provided.

Again, we are doing our best to fight the good fight for Irish boxing, but overriding circumstances and problems caused by the Covid-19 global pandemic are completely beyond our control. That said, we will continue to champion the cause of boxing until we get back in the ring.

Regards,

Paddy Gallagher

National Secretary

Congratulations to Linda Morgan on her election to the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) body as boxing’s representative.

The Arklow BC stalwart said she was delighted to be on board and was looking forward to working with the OFI.

She said: “It’s a great honour. I feel very privileged. Reading some of the other names that were there I thought that maybe it wasn’t going to be possible.

“But I think with the backing of Fergal (Carruth) and Andrew Duncan doing a lot of canvassing on my behalf it got us over the line.

“I’m very excited about it now; I have to say. I’m very honoured as well, obviously.”

Morgan comes from a family with a strong boxing pedigree.

She added: “My father, Jim Moore. He’s the head coach here in Arklow and Chairman of the club. He was also highly involved in the High-Performance unit over the years at Junior and Youths.

“My brother James Moore would have been an Elite champion and a World bronze medalist in 2001 (Belfast). He’d have been part of the High-Performance set up in Gary Keegan’s time.

“As long as I remember I’ve been over in Arklow boxing club. I suppose I really got involved in 2012.

“I did my judges course, and then 2014 I did my Level-1 coaching course as when more females came into the club my father asked me to come on board on the coaching side of things with the girls.

“That was in 2014, and I’ve been coaching them in the club here ever since.”

The Presidents of the AIBA Confederations have prepared their reports for the virtual AIBA Congress which will be held on December 12-13, 2020.  

The reports are available on the AIBA website for the review of National Federations prior to the AIBA Congress, they can be found here below and on the Congress 2020 dedicated page.

Please click here for further information.

The report also includes some dates for 2021.

Please click here for the European Calendar for the remainder of the year.

The Elite Cologne World Cup (formerly the Chemistry Cup) begins in Cologne on December 16.

The tournament runs for four days until December 20.

The Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved the event programme and athlete quotas for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, which are centred on gender equality and youth.

Boxing

The second highest reduction was made in boxing. At the same time, the sport will reach full gender equality in athlete participation for the first time at Paris 2024, fostering a gender-balanced programme featuring seven men’s and six women’s events, with the specific weight classes to be finalised by the IOC EB in the fourth quarter of 2021.

“With this programme, we are making the Olympic Games Paris 2024 fit for the post-corona world. We are further reducing the cost and complexity of hosting the Games. While we will achieve gender equality already at the upcoming Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, we will see for the first time in Olympic history the participation of the exact same number of female athletes as male athletes. There is also a strong focus on youth,” said IOC President Thomas Bach.

186 men will compete at the Tokyo Olympics across eight weights next summer and 100 women across five limits.

Please click here for full article.