LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AFP) — The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday provisionally recognized World Boxing as the body to oversee the sport at future Games.

The IOC has severed links with the International Boxing Association (IBA), the long-standing ruling body of amateur boxing, over financial, governance and ethical concerns and stepped in to organize the sport at last year’s Paris Olympics.

The IBA is chaired by the Kremlin-linked Russian Umar Kremlev.

Boxing is not currently part of the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and IOC president Thomas Bach had warned that boxing’s national federations needed to find a new and “reliable” international partner if it wanted to be included.

In a statement recognizing World Boxing as the sport’s amateur federation, the IOC said the body “has demonstrated strong willingness and effort in enhancing good governance and implementation, to be compliant with the appropriate standards.”

World Boxing, founded in 2023 and which has 78 members led by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and Brazil, hailed the IOC’s decision as “an important milestone.”

“Keeping its place at the Olympic Games is absolutely critical to the future of our sport at every level, from the grassroots to the highest echelons of professional boxing, and this decision by the IOC takes us one step closer to our objective of seeing boxing restored to the Olympic program,” World Boxing’s president Boris van der Vorst said.

Kazakhstan’s former two-time unified world middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin heads World Boxing’s Olympic Commission and in that role has been liaising closely with the IOC.

“Receiving provisional Olympic recognition from the IOC is an important achievement and demonstrates that our sport is on the right path,” said Golovkin, the silver medalist from the 2004 Athens Games.

Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines chairman Ricky Vargas is part of the interim board together with Pichai Chunhavajira of Thailand, Jung Aehyun of Korea, Ali Takleef Shaheed of Iraq, Tatsuya Nakama of Japan, Darkhan Kyzaibayev of Kazakhstan, Tilanoev Shohid of Uzbekistan, Balanmunkh Maidar of Mongolia, and Ajay Singh of India.

World Boxing now has 60 members that include recent approval of memberships of Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Myanmar and Palestine.

“While this is at the executive board level and the real vote being in the hands of the general assembly in the IOC session on March 20, this is definitely a huge step for boxing’s return to Olympics,” ABAP secretary general Marcus Manalo said.

Boxing has been a great source of pride for the Filipinos. In fact, 10 of the Philippines’ 18 Olympic medals came from boxing with Nesthy Petecio and Aira Villegas bringing home bronze medals in the Paris Olympics last year.