Why Doesn't the US Use Pros in Olympic Boxing (Part 2)
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 21 Aug 2024
Team USA for Paris Olympics.
In the opening part, we traced how the once mighty Americans have been reduced from masters to paupers in Olympic boxing in the last twenty four years.
The main reason given by authorities is that "boys are usually pitted against men" in the Olympics. Which is true, seeing how young and relatively raw and inexperienced American amateur boxers are usually against veterans from Cuba and former Soviet bloc boxing nations.
With the US again hosting the Summer Olympics in 2028 in Los Angeles and boxing not totally ruled out as an Olympic event, perhaps the USA could make a grand comeback.
But why is the US not fielding its top pros in the Olympics since the IOC has allowed professionals to participate years back?
Actually this a question that also could be asked of other countries with long developed pro boxing industries and considerable tradition of sending fighters to the Olympics.
Read on to understand the background and the prevailing constraints on the matter.
OLYMPICS COMPETITION SETUP HAS CHANGED
It was open secret especially during the Cold War period that "professionals" were being fielded by the Soviet Union and allied countries to establish their superiority over the West even in the realm of sports.
They managed to mask their athletes pro status by assigning or detailing them mostly in their military where their state allowances were supplemented by pay or wages.
With the fall of the Communist Empire in the late 80s and early 90s, sustaining this setup had become difficult for Russia and the now independent former Soviet states but nonetheless continued. Meanwhile at this same time, professionalism had expanded to more sport events, including team sports such as basketball in many countries outside of the USA whose NBA had also started recruiting players from Europe, even from Russia.
To level the playing field, the International Olympics Committee and its affiliates therefore, by the early 90s, started allowing the participation of professionals in almost every sports. The lone team sport where it was deemed unviable or not sustainable is football or soccer because of the huge global popularity of the quadrennial World Cup.
The sport where the US has effectively changed the "boys versus men" scenario has been basketball where NBA stars fully supplanted previous collegians filled US national squads in the Olympics and the FIBA World beginning in the 1992 Barcelona Games with resounding success.
The hugely successful experience with basketball using pros has prompted the IOC much later to open other Olympic sports, including individual sports events like boxing also to professionals. But it has not panned out well in boxing.
PRO BOXING, AMATEUR BOXING DIFFER; PRIORITIES, SKED CONFLICTS, INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS
Professional boxers were started to be allowed to participate in the Olympics by the then IOC - recognized global boxing body, the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2016.
However the process is not like in basketball where the US organized a new FIBA recognized body called US Basketball to facilitate the qualification and participation of pros in FIBA accredited tournaments including the Olympics.
While the OIC is open to professionals in boxing, the task and process of qualifying pro boxers to the Olympics lies with the NOC. This is where problems lie in the US and most other countries with highly developed professional boxing industry where participation in the Olympics could pose conflicts in priorities and schedules. Hence making the task of the NOC in qualifying boxers and facilitating their participation extremely difficult.
Essentially, only pro boxers who have control of their priorities and time have the bigger chance to qualify for participation. This is the reason very few professional boxers have been enticed to join in the Olympics.
Another major reason why pro boxers are generally not keen is the fact that amateur, especially Olympic style boxing, is very different from professional boxing in terms of training, preparation and mode of competition. In the pros, boxers train and prepare for a specific foe and fight date. In the amateurs, boxers train and prepare for a tournament that requires them to fight almost daily according to their progress in the tournament and facing different opponents in the process.
Aside from above, weighin is conducted almost daily and test for drug screening is done almost routinely during the course of the tournament.
Ljkewise, the results of the few pro boxers that qualified to the Olympics starting 2016 have also not inspired confidence.
For instance, former middleweight champion Hassan NDam DJikam and ex-flyweight champion Amnat Ruenroeng were among the pioneering pro boxers to join the Olympics but were both eliminated in the initial rounds of the competition at the Rio Games.
As stated earlier, the question of using pros in the Olympics could be asked not only of the US but most other countries with strong tradition in professional boxing and where the difference between pro boxing and amateur boxing and their development runs deep as per their respective national experiences.
Indeed, in our case, we have wondered if Manny Pacquiao could have given us our first gold had he put his mind and qualified to the 2016 Rio Olympics when he still had some of his skills and youth. But then, Manny had different priorities at that time and it was doubtful if he had the time away from his professional boxing.
Much later, Manny volunteered to fight for the Philippines in the Olympics when he already retired hence had better control of his time and priorities but alas, he was too old to even qualify under the Olympics special rule.
If a country like ours would be hard put enticing our top pros to carry the flag in Olympic boxing, what more of the US which has the most robust professional boxing industry in the world?
Having pros fighting in the Olympics sound nice but not feasible, not workable.
And that is not the solution to the flagging fortunes of the USA and other once dominant Western nations.
In 1975, the US ruled Olympic boxing in Montreal with their "boys beating men" through talents that were discovered, nurtured and trained under a conscious and focused national sports development program.
That could work again.
And for us too.
But then, the main concern now is how to save boxing as Olympics event in LA 2028.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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