IBA supporters hold protests over Boxing's exclusion from Olympics

The supporters of the International Boxing Association (IBA) led by Olympic medallist and former World Champion Roy Jones Jr are conducting a protest over the exclusion of boxing from the Olympics in Lausanne, Switzerland.

As per a report in Inside the Games, the group of protestors reached outside the Olympic House in Lausanne wearing t-shirts reading "No boxing without IBA" and "No Olympics without Boxing" ahead of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) executive committee meeting.

Boxing was excluded from the initial list of sports for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and the protestors want this decision to be reversed.

Close to 40 pugilists and coaches from countries like Switzerland, Poland, and France were present in the protests alongside Roy Jones Jr as per the report.

Roy Jones Jr, who infamously lost an Olympic gold at the 1988 Seoul Games, even had a meeting with the IOC officials regarding the same.

Roy Jones Jr has been a staunch supporter of the movement to get boxing back into the Olympics.

"I was robbed of a gold medal but the Olympics was my first ever real goal in my young life. If I do not stand for boxing after all it has given me, then why even have been given the gift from God," he had said earlier this year.