Berlin, Germany (My Sportsbook) - Women's boxing is among the sports that have been added for the 2012 Olympics in London. The International Olympic Committee executive board approved three women's events and subtracted one from the men's division, leaving 13 total boxing events for the London Games. There had been 11 men's boxing events on the program. According to the IOC, the decision to add women's boxing was a recognition that the sport has made substantial progress in universality and technical quality of the athletes since it was last considered in 2005. Other changes for London include the implementation of a new combined run- shoot format in the modern pentathlon and the elimination of placement matches in the handball tournament. The executive board also agreed to the request made by the International Canoe Federation for the replacement of men's C2 500m with women's K1 200m. The board also agreed to replace the remaining three men's 500m sprint events with 200m sprint events. New events for wrestling, swimming and cycling were submitted by the representative federations, and the executive board indicated that they could occur, especially if the new events increase the participation of women at the Games and on condition that they replace events already on the program. Additionally, current events can be replaced with new ones only if the total number of athletes is maintained. The inclusion of mixed doubles for tennis will be considered by the executive board, pending guarantees from the International Tennis Federation that the top players in the singles rankings would be able to participate. A decision on the issue will be made at the executive board's meeting in December. |
