NEWSLETTER by EUBC President Franco Falcinelli July 2021

IN TOKYO GOOD PERFORMANCES OF EUROPEAN BOXERS

Dear boxing friends,

The Tokyo Olympic Games are approaching the final stage.

It was really a pleasure to be able to admire the joint training of the Teams from India, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Poland and Italy which had chosen Assisi for the final Training Camp before Olympics.

The European boxers are doing very well. Many European boxers are in the medal zone and someone else could have taken a long way if some very close verdict had not denied it.

After Rio, AIBA was accused of failing to check the judges in evaluating the results, of not having had carefully chosen the Referees and Judges, as well as not having adequately punished those who made mistakes, and that they were not very capable or even corrupted.

These reproaches were indictments against AIBA.

Well, after Tokyo without AIBA, the IOC Task Force must admit that boxing is a very difficult sport to judge.

Even in this edition, Olympic boxing did not offer a perfect management model on this fundamental aspect of the boxing competitions.

Too many split decisions and some technical mistakes made by the Referees, re-proposed the imperative need to change the verdict in view of technical errors of the R&Js.

We must abolish the wrong principle that refeering and judging is a subjective evaluation!

We must reach a unanimous vision of the bout and give a unanimous result round by round. We may have split decisions, but not opposite results between the 5 judges and sometime against the ethic and fairness of Olympic sport.

Other aspect that sometimes influence the orientation of R&Js is the popularity of boxers, their position in the Ranking and Seeding.

Therefore, it is mandatory to make a careful, competent and responsible choice of R&Js for all level boxing competitions.

However, in boxing those who referee and judge the bouts are human beings who can make mistakes in good faith!

For this reason, in January 2017 at the AIBA EC meeting in Rome, I proposed to adopt the Bout Analysis Review (B.A.R.). 

This proposal was supported by AIBA President Umar Kremlev and now the Bout Review is included in the AIBA Technical and Competition Rules (20) and it is applicable to Youth and Elite competitions. I firmly believed that it should have been also applied in Tokyo.

International Boxing Day

Another valuable initiative by President Umar Kremlev is to celebrate the International Boxing Day on August 27th. National Federations all around the world will join in Boxing Day celebrations.

Four European Countries: Switzerland, Russia, Italy and Serbia – along with Uzbekistan and Kenya are indicated as key centres with most bright and massive celebrations!

European Schoolboiys&Schoolgirls in Sarayevo

On 12 August in Sarajevo the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina will kick off the 2021 EUBC Schoolboys & Schoolgirls European Championships. After the first edition organized in Rome in 2003, this European event for our best youth boxers has made a great contribution to the continuity of the quality of continental Olympic boxing.

I am sure that also on this occasion we will be able to witness a welcome international debut of many young talents.

EUBC General Assembly

On August 12, the EUBC convened the General Assembly for the approval of the new Constitution. AIBA asked to modify and add some key points that make the Governance of the European Confederation more democratic and transparent in the ethical and social interest of Olympic boxing.

Marcell Jacobs, Olympic Star, loves boxing

And among the talents we also could have included the formidable 100-meter Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs who wanted to dedicate himself to boxing if his love for athletics had not definitively captured him. The spirit of indomitable fighter remained and he confirmed it in the final in Tokyo!