International Boxing Association renews partnership with ITA as part of anti-doping measures

By PTI

LAUSANNE: The International Boxing Association (IBA) has renewed its partnership with the International Testing Agency for three years, an agreement which will cover in-competition dope testing, long-term sample storage, and investigations among other aspects.

The IBA first entered into an agreement with ITA after the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“The agreement includes IBA outsourcing all anti-doping activities to the ITA, including testing, intelligence gathering, test distribution planning, education and Therapeutic Use Exemption handling, as well as result management and the handling of anti-doping rule violations,” the IBA said in a statement.

“The full scope of the new agreement now also covers in-competition testing, long-term sample storage, intelligence and investigations… in strict adherence to the World Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA’s) International Standards,” it added.

The move is part of the IBA’s efforts to regain affiliation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which suspended it in 2019 owing to financial irregularities, and administrative issues.

“It is our duty to protect our athletes and reinforce the values of clean sport in boxing. Continuing our work with the ITA will ensure we do exactly that,” said IBA President Umar Kremlev.

Benjamin Cohen, ITA Director-General added, “By entrusting the full range of its anti-doping programme to us at the ITA, we hope in turn that we can enable IBA to focus fully on its core mission of developing boxing, in a transparent manner, worthy of wider trust. We look forward to continuing to provide IBA and boxers with our expertise and are fully committed to supporting IBA in its fight against doping.”

IBA is following a roadmap given by the IOC for reinstatement in 2023. Competitions that will fall under the renewed ITA partnership will include the World Boxing Championships.

Boxing has managed to stay on board for the 2024 Paris Olympics but has been dropped from the provisional roster for the 2028 Games. Its future depends on the roadmap of good governance that IOC wants the body to implement.

The IBA recently announced a revamp of its administrative structure and promised conduct of elections by June end this year as recommended by an independent governance review.