Meet the Qualified Athletes for Nanjing 2014 YOG

Lausanne, May 23, 2014: The International Boxing Association (AIBA) is pleased to announce today, 85 days ahead of the Opening Ceremony, the final list of boxers that have qualified for the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) to be held from August 16 until August 28, 2014.

From over 500 boxers that competed for the chance to qualify, only the top six boxers for Men and Women qualified per weight category for the YOG via the AIBA Youth World Championships and Women Youth Olympic Qualifying Event held last month in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Thus, a total of 60 Youth Men and 18 Youth Women boxers are qualified to participate in these important Games.

For the first time in boxing history, the upcoming YOG will welcome the debut of the Youth Women Boxing in the Olympic Games in three Olympic Categories – 51, 60 and 75 kg.

“I would like to congratulate all of the boxers and the National Federations qualified for the Youth Olympic Games for their successes in these Games. In addition, this is an incredibly exciting time for women boxing, with the sport truly beginning to blossom following their landmark inclusion in the London 2012 Olympic Games,” – commented the AIBA President Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu on this occasion.

As per the qualification pathway there was a maximum of three quotas for men and two quotas for women for each NOC as well as 2 Host City Quota Places (1 man and 1 woman) that were allocated to China.

Initially, there were also allocated Universality Quota Places in certain weight categories.

These boxers unfortunately did not meet the required technical level, and therefore for their own safety, AIBA decided to reallocate these quotas. This decision signifies that the physical integrity of an athlete is always at the forefront of AIBA’s concerns.

Therefore, all four boxers from the semi-finals qualified directly. Then, in an innovative twist, AIBA had a Box-Off between the losers of the quarterfinals, to identify 5th and 6th placed boxers, in a fair and transparent manner.

According to the procedure in regards of the confirmation of the qualified boxers for the Olympic Games, AIBA had to first send letters with the names of qualified boxers to each National Olympic Committee (NOC).

In turn, NOCs had to accept, refuse, or choose the allocated quota places that they were allocated. Each refused quota was then reallocated to the next best ranked boxer in the same weight category.

At the same time, some NOCs had to return any quota above the threshold back to AIBA.

After that AIBA met with IOC to select the replacement.

Following that process, all the replacing boxers had to be communicated to the respective NOCs and confirmed by them.

Now that all these steps are done, AIBA is pleased to announce the final list of boxers that have qualified for the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games. —- AIBA