Boxers can fight till 40: AIBA

The competition at the major games will now fall under the AIBA Open boxing category.

The upper-age limit for boxers,including those competing at the Olympic Games and the Asian Games has been increased from 34 to 40 by the International Amateur Boxing Federation. The competition at the major games will now fall under the AIBA Open boxing category. The decision to increase the age limit was taken earlier this week at the AIBA Congress held in Beijing,which included 187 member associations.

Also the elite men boxers will compete without headgear for the first time during the World Championships in Kazakhstan in October. Women,junior and youth boxers will have to wear headgear in all competitions while the International Olympic Committee is yet to give clearance for men to box at the Games without the use of headgear.

Akhil Kumar,who won gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games,participated in the World Series of Boxing,where boxers didn’t wear protective headgear.

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“The role of the medical supervision will be very vital. It will also mean that boxing will be a bit more risky. I was injured during WSB but if you have the skill and technique there is nothing to be worried about,” Akhil said.

At 31,Akhil believes that he has a lot of boxing left in him and the revision of the upper-age limit means he can still hope of qualifying for the Olympics.

“There is still a lot of boxing left in me. There have been emergence of new boxers in my weight category but there is always the challenge to try and improve,” Akhil added.

With AIBA also launching the AIBA Professional Boxing (APB) later this year,56 quotas for Olympics will be decided through that event apart from the quotas bagged in World Series of Boxing.

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Apart from this,the boxers can qualify through the Continental and inter-continental competitions and World Championships before the Olympics,which will act as Olympics qualifiers. “Boxing will change the way it did when head gear was introduced in the 1990’s. We have been training without headgear and the World Championships will be a tough challenge for Indian boxers but will also be a learning experience,” national coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu said.

The coach also believes that raising the upper age limit to 40 will benefit the heavier weight categories. “It will be beneficial mainly in upper weight categories where we faced a dearth of boxers who have experience,” Sandhu said.