The International Olympic Committee (IOC) aims to achieve gender equality in every sport. As a part of that, they have increased the number of boxing events for women in the 2024 Paris Olympics from five to six as per a revised list. While the preceding Tokyo Games had eight events for men and five for women, in Paris, there will be seven events for male pugilists and six for the female, according to an update shared by Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Narinder Batra.
The new categories for men are 51kg, 57kg, 63.5kg, 71kg, 80kg, 92kg and +92kg.
While the new women’s weight classes include 50kg, 54kg, 57kg, 60kg, and 75kg.
The changes are in line with the trend of increasing women’s weight classes as the Rio Olympics only had three, which was increased by two for the Tokyo Games.
In shooting, the trap mixed team event has been replaced with a skeet mixed team event.
The competition schedule for the Paris Olympic Games was unveiled on Friday after being approved by the IOC executive board.
In total, 32 sports are set to be contested across 19 days of action, with 329 events due to take place across 762 sessions.
Action is scheduled to begin on July 24, two days before the Opening Ceremony is due to be held.
Boxing has been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since its introduction to the program at the 1904 Summer Olympics, except for the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm because Swedish law banned the sport at the time. The 2008 Summer Olympics were the final games, with boxing as a male-only event.
Since the 2012 Summer Olympics, women’s boxing has been part of the program.
The boxing competition is organized as a set of tournaments, one for each weight class. The number of weight classes has changed over the years (currently 8 for men and 5 for women), and the definition of each class has changed several times, as shown in the following table. Until 1936, weights were measured in pounds, and from 1948 onwards, weights were measured in kilograms.
From the 2016 Summer Olympics, male athletes no longer have to wear protective headgear in competition due to a ruling by the AIBA and the IOC that it contributes to greater concussion risk. Female athletes will continue to wear the headgear due to lack of data on its effectiveness on women.
