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Olmin Leyba, Joey Villar - The Philippine Star
March 19, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Boxing, a major source of medals for the Philippines in the Olympics, will get its spot back in the program of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles and Filipino sports officials couldn’t be happier with this development.
Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) chairman and Philippine Olympic team chef-de-mission Ricky Vargas heralded this as good news not only for the country but for the sport and all the boxers.
“We are back in the Olympics with an international federation (World Boxing) recognized by the IOC (International Olympic Committee),” Vargas, who attended the WB board meeting yesterday, told The STAR.
“The Philippines made a principled decision to leave AIBA (the old boxing governing body that lost IOC recognition in 2023). We took a principled risk to join (the new) World Boxing. We were first and got elected to the WB board. Now, wow, we are back in the LA Olympics, WB is getting its recognition from the IOC and is here to stay.”
Now that boxing’s place in LA is all but a formality, the Pinoy boxers can go about their Olympic quest in 2028 without a cloud of uncertainty. The Philippines has captured four silver medals and six bronzes in the quadrennial Games and will continue hunting for the breakthrough gold in the next Olympiad.
“It feels like boxing was reborn and is here to stay,” said Vargas.
Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham Tolentino, for his part, said he had known all along that boxing would stay in the Olympics.
“It’s expected because it’s a favorite sport played by all, it’s just a matter of time,” Tolentino told The STAR.
The PhilCycling chief and Tagaytay City Mayor also said it was just fitting to have boxing since it was in the United States where the sport was first played in the quadrennial meet – in 1904.
“It’s been in the Olympics since 1904, in the USA, and so for LA too,” he said.
