Nigeria Boxing Federation interim president Azania Omo-Agege has accused the International Olympic Committee of discrimination against African nations through recent changes to Olympic boxing weight categories, The PUNCH reports.
The NBF chief argues that the IOC’s decision to reduce boxing categories has disproportionately affected African nations’ medal prospects at the Olympics.
“This has not been very good for Africa as most of the weight categories they took out are where Africa excelled. If you check our statistics for the past Olympics, Africa was coming with about three to five medals.
“Since the new change, Africa has only been getting one to two medals as a whole continent at the Olympics. That is discrimination,” Omo-Agege told our correspondent.
His comments come after Africa managed just one boxing medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics, with Algeria’s Imane Khelif claiming gold in the -66kg category amid controversy over transphobic harassment and gender questions.
The reduction in weight categories has forced athletes to make drastic weight adjustments to compete, a situation Omo-Agege describes as unfair.
“Now when they reduce the categories, you are forcing the athletes to rapidly increase or reduce weights so as to compete, and that is not fair, it is discriminatory,” he added.
