Kremlev says Olympics will be just for kids if IBA stays excluded

LONDON :Olympic boxing will become just a youth tournament if the International Boxing Association stays excluded as a governing body, IBA president Umar Kremlev said on Monday.

The Russian told Reuters through a translator that the IBA, suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2019 and stripped of recognition in 2023, was heading into a 'golden era' of its own.

"For the boxers it will be important to participate in the world championships and the IBA tournaments. The Olympics will be for the children. It's children's sport," he said via a Zoom call.

"It's like football and the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics.

"The Olympic games are not developing the sport itself while the International Federation does.

"The most important tournaments should be IBA tournaments including world championships as a pinnacle and Olympic tournaments should be in parallel just for the youth generation, for kids."

Speaking on the day former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took the helm of the IOC from Thomas Bach, Kremlev spoke of the German in derogatory terms and offered no conciliatory words to either.

He said future IOC presidents should be elected by countries rather than individual IOC members and Coventry should "leave no trace of Bach".

Kremlev has history in attacking the IOC and Bach, doing so at the Paris Games in a long and rambling press conference last August that drew a withering response from the Olympic organisation.

"If you ever needed any evidence at all that the IBA is unfit to run boxing just look at the key members of the IBA who took part in that travesty," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said at the time.

Kremlev also repeated a call for Olympic athletes to be paid prize money.

Kremlev heaped scorn on World Boxing,