“Amateur boxing will die without the Olympics.”
They are the words of Wexford man and head coach of the USA Olympic Team, Billy Walsh.
The sport could be banned from Tokyo 2020 games if Uzbekistan, Gafur Rakhimov is elected president of the International Boxing Association in Moscow next month.
The International Olympic Committee are concerned over match-fixing.
The board has also frozen contracts and financial payments to the International Amateur Boxing Association.
Boxing is Ireland’s most successful Olympic sport with 16 out of the 31 medals we have won coming from inside the ring since entering the Olympics at the 1924 games in Paris.