Road to Paris 2024: 49 quota places allocated at first Boxing World Qualifying Tournament – Refugee athlete qualifies
An impressive lineup of more than 600 athletes from 113 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), along with the Boxing Refugee Team and Individual Neutral Athletes, competed at the first Boxing World Qualifying Tournament in Italy, from 3 to 11 March 2024, where 49 quota places for the upcoming Olympic Games Paris 2024 were allocated. One of these was secured by refugee athlete Cindy Ngamba.
A total of 551 bouts were played over 9 days of competition at the E-Work Arena in Busto Arsizio, Italy, with quota places distributed across 13 weight categories (7 men’s events with 28 available quota places and 6 women’s events with 21 available quota places) to a total of 30 NOCs.
The most successful NOCs were Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which won five quota places each for Paris, followed by host country Italy, which collected four Olympic passes.
Additionally, refugee athlete Cindy Ngamba made her dreams come true as she secured a spot at Paris 2024. The boxer – who is among the 70 Refugee Athlete Scholarship-holders supported by Olympic Solidarity - outpowered Kazakhstan’s Valentina Khalzova, claiming one of the four quota places up for grabs in the women’s 75kg division.
Two athletes, Colombia’s Victoria Ingrit Lorena Valencia (women’s 50kg) and Chinese Taipei’s Chen Nien-chin (women’s 66kg), qualified for their third consecutive Olympic Games participation, while Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Nesthy Petecio (PHI) became the first Filipina boxer to qualify for two Games, as she claimed a spot in the women’s 57kg event.
The tournament served as a crucial step on the Boxing Road to Paris 2024, following the continental qualification phase staged throughout 2023.
The second and last World Qualifying Tournament will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 25 May to 2 June.
In line with the Boxing Qualification System for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, only those NOCs which have not yet qualified an athlete in a specific weight category via the respective continental qualification event are allowed to enter one athlete per weight category.
Paris 2024 Boxing Unit
The tournament in Busto Arsizio was organised under the authority of the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU), an ad-hoc unit created by the IOC Executive Board and tasked with organising and ensuring the delivery of the Olympic Boxing Qualifying Tournaments and the Boxing Competition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
This decision followed the suspension of Olympic recognition of the International Boxing Association (IBA) by the IOC Session in June 2019, with recognition subsequently withdrawn by the IOC Session in June 2023, and the announcement in June 2022 that the IBA would not run the Olympic Boxing Qualifying Tournaments and the Boxing Competition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
In line with the PBU’s primary remit, and to focus on the athletes and their road to Paris, boxers competed only until the quota places were distributed, and no medal matches or medal ceremonies were staged during the tournament.
All the results, drawsheets, updates and photos of the Boxing Road to Paris 1st World Qualifying Tournament can be found on the Athlete365 Boxing Corner website at boxing.athlete365.org.