Mixed doubles, national colours for bouts: AIBA boss Rahimov’s plan to popularise women’s boxing

Mixed doubles boxing, pugilists competing in national colours are among the few plan newly elected Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) president Gafur Rahimov listed during his interview with the Times of India.

The Uzbek businessman has taken over the reigns of the association at a time when the International Olympic Council (IOC) has threatened to remove boxing from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics program if they fail to get their house in order and AIBA in financial trouble.

However, Rahimov was confident of resolving these issues and is already looking forward to making the sport, especially women’s boxing, more popular.

“I have started a new project called mixed-doubles boxing. This project will feature a single match with several rounds with men and women alternating. In the end, points will be generated after looking at the scores of both. They will be both competing as a team and this new project will contribute greatly to involving more women in boxing,” he told the newspaper on the sidelines of the Women’s World Boxing championship.

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Rahimov said a task forced has been formed to develop the concept and rules for the new project and was confident of launching mixed doubles boxing by the end of next year.

The AIBA president said there have been discussions on whether the boxers should be allowed to compete in national colours instead of the traditional red and blue and felt it could provide them a chance to attract more sponsors and supporters.

“It is a common practice in other sports – team and individual. It will be really useful when we launch the mixed doubles boxing. There they will compete as a national team,” he added.

Rahimov, however ruled out the possibility of women boxing without the headgear in the near future saying safety of the boxers was paramount. “We are not planning to remove the headgear as yet. More study has to be done and our medical commission is working on study to see if it is feasible. We have to look at safety and then popularity.”