THE president of AIBA, the international governing organization for boxing under the International Olympic Committee, is confident that professional boxers will be allowed to compete in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
ABAP executive director Ed Picson told The Standard that Dr. Wu Ching-Kuo “sounds dead sure” that the AIBA Congress scheduled for later this month or early June will ratify the change because he had “spoken to all the national federations and there have been no objections.”
“Dr. Wu called me in January to indicate he could swing a wild card entry for eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao,” said Picson, “with the approval of the International Olympic Committee, the Association of National Olympic Committees under president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad-Al Sabah of Kuwait and AIBA itself.”
Picson noted that only five weight categories are available for the wild card, one of which is the junior welterweight division that the ABAP has left open in case Pacquiao decides to compete in the Rio Olympics, which would be his last chance since he would be over the 40 year age limit for the 2020 Olympic Games.
The ABAP executive director informed The Standard that Dr. Wu told him “let me know (Pacquiao’s decision) because he (Manny) must decide first, then we talk.”
If Pacquiao, who was recently elected to the Philippine senate with over 16 million votes decides to follow the advice of his longtime promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, who said “Manny owes an obligation to the people who elected him to the Senate and needs to fulfill that obligation,” ABAP is likely to send Dennis Galvan who has been training with the national pool in Baguio City to the final Olympic qualifier in Azerbaijan.
Picson disclosed that the coaching staff had decided to send Mario Fernandez, Ian Clark Bautista and Eumir Marcial, whom he expects to “give it their all in a tough competition, where we expect them to be able to hold their own.”