Dee Hamaguchi . . . is the reason why women were here at the Daily News Golden Gloves in the first place.
—Wayne Coffey, New York Daily News, April 7, 1995[1]
In parallel with the expansive growth in women’s professional boxing was the rise of American and international women’s amateur boxing. The momentum and growth of amateur boxing worldwide—including such unlikely locales as Afghanistan—eventually led to the decision in 2009 by the International Olympic Committee to include women’s boxing as an Olympic sport in the London Games of 2012—bringing the sport full circle from its first exhibition at the 1904 St. Louis Games. It also fueled a huge boom in the number of women joining gyms to box. While some of the women were interested in recreational boxing and boxercise/kickboxing classes, others had their sights set on entering amateur tournaments with the hopes of becoming Olympians or professionals.
Nowhere has the spirit of the amateur movement shown its value more than in the squeals of delight emanating from the Afghan Women’s Boxing Club in Kabul, Afghanistan. Set in the very stadium where the Taliban once stoned women, the young ladies of the club have braved threats and taunts to practice the sweet science, all the while dreaming of one day boxing in the Olympics.
From Amateurs to Olympians
Since the time of the Ancient Greeks, the pinnacle of amateur sports has been the Olympic Games. While the games were eventually abandoned in Greece, periodically throughout Western history, gatherings of athletes—some even under the banner of an Olympic competition—have been held.
Boxing—a sacred sport in the Greco-Roman tradition—was contested at the original Olympic Games, and after the modern Olympics were restarted in 1896, it was finally added to the roster of sports at the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games.
In the United States the amateur movement had been an important component of boxing beginning with the advent of amateur sports in the 1880s. The bouts were fought under the strict rules promulgated by the American Amateur Union (AAU)—and although female boxers were excluded from participating, women’s boxing grew in popularity across all strata of society.
At the 1904 Olympics Games in St. Louis (part of the larger St. Louis Exposition) male and female demonstration boxing events were held. The men’s boxing events became part of the official program with the results recorded for posterity, whereas the women’s exhibition boxing did not.
After the 1904 Olympics, women’s boxing remained outside of the auspices of the amateur boxing movement nationally and internationally. Nonetheless, women fought matches at amateur boxing clubs using rules promulgated by the AAU and other national bodies over the years.
With the advent in 1946 of the International Amateur Boxing Association, which takes its acronym, AIBA, from the original French name of the organization (Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur), the sport created an umbrella organization governing boxing, with all participants adhering to a global set of rules and regulations. It also became closely associated with the IOC and promulgated rules for the Olympic Games.
The AIBA opened its ranks to women’s boxing in 1993—following the lead of the Swedish Amateur Boxing Association’s sanctioning of the sport for women five years earlier. The inclusion of female contests under the AIBA umbrella was always with a view that the sport would eventually be included in the Olympic Games.
Individual countries continued to sanction female amateur boxing throughout the 1990s and into the early 21st century, with a current roster of more than 120 countries having organized amateur boxing programs for girls and women. Although a few countries have still not sanctioned such programs—including Cuba—the momentum and excitement generated by the 2012 Olympic Games is currently helping to overcome any lingering doubts surrounding the legitimization of the sport.
From Kabul to Bejing, Ankara to Scranton, Pennsylvania, Buenos Aires to Kampala, and New Dehli to Mexico City, women have embraced the international amateur boxing movement to become fierce competitors—often while overcoming deep prejudices and stereotypes. In the United States alone, some three thousand girls and women currently register each year to compete under the auspices of USA Boxing.
With the introduction of the first AIBA-sponsored Women’s World Championships in 2001, held in Scranton, Pennsylvania, 125 fighters from thirty countries took their first steps into international competition, steps that culminated with women’s participation in the 2012 London Games.
It was not until women began fighting in AIBA-sponsored international events that the possibility of competing in the Games began to take shape. With the success of this first women’s international competition, planning began for the second Women’s World Championships in Antalya, Turkey. That tournament eventually included twelve divisions, with gold medals won by athletes from Russia, Sweden, Canada, China, Hungary, Italy, Turkey, and the United States. India sent Mary Kom (Mangte Chungneijang Merykom), who won a silver medal and became the only one of the contestants to go on to the 2012 Olympics.
Held in October 2002, the second tournament drew 185 boxers from thirty-five countries. Several of the women who had medaled at the 2001 championships also won medals in the second international competition, including a returning Mary Kom, who improved her standing by winning a gold medal.
The third AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championship was held some three years later in Poldosk, Russia, between September 26 and October 3, 2005. While participation fell somewhat to a total of 139 boxers from thirty countries, women competed in a total of thirteen divisions. India’s Mary Kom proved her superiority again by winning gold, and future Olympian Mary Spencer of Canada, elected the best boxer in the tournament, dazzled the other contestants and audiences alike with her skills in taking the gold. It was also Ireland’s future Olympian Katie Taylor’s first tournament, although she was eliminated after the second round.
Russia continued its place as a powerhouse in women’s boxing by sweeping seven of the gold medals—and set an AIBA record by capturing twelve of the fifty-two medals won. They were followed by the People’s Republic of Korea (PRK) and Turkey, both of whom won six medals. The success of these first three championships set the stage for the AIBA to submit a proposal in early October 2005 to the IOC to include women’s boxing in the 2008 Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, China. The IOC agreed to vote on the proposal at its executive meeting to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in late October.
In reviewing the merits of the proposal, however, the IOC determined to reject the request for inclusion in the 2008 Games. Kelly Fairweather, the IOC sports director, in discussing the committee’s determination on female boxing, said, “The IOC did not feel it has reached the stage where it merits inclusion. We will watch the progress of women’s boxing in the next few years.”
In part, the reasoning was based on what the IOC felt were the limited number of nations that would be represented at the 2008 Games, along with concerns that the skill levels of the athletes might not be remarkable enough to warrant inclusion. Mention was made of Laila Ali’s visibility in the sport, which had served to widen its popularity, but not to the point where the IOC might add the sport to the roster of events for 2008.
Female boxers were deeply disappointed by the rebuff. Amateur boxer Tika Hemingway, a former USA National Champion, said, “I’ve fought in a couple of different countries. Why not the Olympics? Why not China?”[2] Others who had been boxing since the first AIBA tournament in 2001 felt bitterly disappointed, having worked for years for the chance to become Olympians.
The AIBA had, however, been offered a lifeline in the form of an invitation to resubmit a proposal for inclusion in the 2012 London Games. Under the new leadership of Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu, following his election to the presidency of the AIBA on November 6, 2006, the organization made the commitment to try again.
To coincide with the change in management of the organization, the fourth AIBA championships were held in New Delhi, India, beginning on November 18, 2006, along with the decision to hold the in
ternational championships every two years.
Some 174 boxers from thirty-three nations competed in New Dehli. Mary Kom was able to achieve her third consecutive gold medal, and Katie Taylor, returning for her second tournament, took the gold. Future Olympian Marlen Esparza from the United States competed for her first time and brought home a bronze medal. Canada’s Mary Spencer won a bronze. In all, a total of four future Olympians medaled at the tournament.
While participation in women’s international competition had gone barely noticed in some participating countries, the twenty-year-old Katie Taylor, who had also won gold medals at the European championship and world championships that year, was well on her way to becoming a heroine in her home city of Bray and throughout Ireland. She was even shortlisted for the coveted RTÉ Sports Person of the Year Award for her accomplishments in 2006. (RTÉ is the Irish national broadcasting network, akin to Great Britain’s BBC.)
Taylor, the daughter of former Irish champion Peter Taylor, had grown up in the boxing gym alongside her two brothers, watching her father train. By the age of ten she was in gloves. Though she was forbidden from competing, she trained and started boxing in exhibition fights. Her father would put her down as “K. Taylor” with no one the wiser until her headgear was removed at the end of the bout. At the age of eleven, she even wrote a letter to boxer Deirdre Gogarty about her aspirations.
With approval by the Irish Amateur Boxing Union to allow women’s boxing in 2001, Taylor made history when she fought in Ireland’s first sanctioned boxing match against Alanna Audley, defeating her by the score of 23-12. Taylor was also making a name for herself in soccer and played on Ireland’s national team, although her true love was boxing.
In 2007, true to their word to fight for women’s boxing to be included in the 2012 London Games, the AIBA scheduled two special exhibition bouts at the World Boxing Championships in Chicago, Illinois, for an audience of invited IOC officials.
The boxers selected for the bouts were all highly motivated, with exemplary skills, determination, and Olympic-style boxing expertise. The first pairing was between Russian fighter Olesya Gladkova, a twenty-seven-year-old former kickboxer who won both the European and world championships two years running, and Marlen Esparza, who’d just turned eighteen but had already won a silver at the Pan American Games and a bronze at the world championships. Ironically, even though she was the youngest, she was one of the most experienced, having boxed competitively in the amateurs since first taking to the sport at the age of eleven.
Katie Taylor, who’d added another European championship title to her growing list of accomplishments, was chosen to fight Canadian Pan American champion and world bronze medalist Katie Dunn in the second exhibition bout.
One thing was clear: All four fighters were acutely aware that this was their chance to show the IOC that women’s boxing deserved to be added to the roster of sports at the 2012 Games—and all four performed to the best of their abilities at the special contests held just before the men’s finals.
Other AIBA women’s boxing initiatives in 2007 included the establishment of a women’s commission, the announcement of a new junior female boxing competition series, and closer alignment of the rules governing men’s and women’s boxing.
The following year, in November 2008, the fifth AIBA Women’s World Championships were held in Ningbo City, China. It was the most successful to date with 237 boxers representing forty-two countries—a huge jump from 2006. Held over a seven-day period, such future Olympians as China’s Ren Cancan and Dong Chen, the U.K.’s Nicola Adams and Natasha Jonas, and American Quanitta “Queen” Underwood joined the likes of Katie Taylor (who won the competition’s best boxer award), Mary Kom, Mary Spencer, and Marlen Esparza. Taylor went on to be named the 2008 best fighter of the year by AIBA.
With the unanimous decision on February 19, 2009, by the AIBA executive committee to send the IOC a proposal to include women’s boxing in the 2012 London Games, the AIBA went into high gear to promote the sport in anticipation of the IOC’s decision. (The IOC had originally anticipated rendering a decision in October 2009, but in April announced the decision would be made in August.)
In a statement announcing the actions taken, AIBA’s president, Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu, said, “The IOC understands the importance of women’s boxing and knows the current developments and its popularity. We are the only sport without women in the Olympics. We are the only sport where women’s rights are not fully respected. We have to work with the IOC to gain their understanding and support.”[3]
In making their pitch, AIBA determined to improve their chances by maintaining the same number of competitors that had competed in the 2008 Beijing Games. This meant limiting the number to 286 boxers. In their proposal to the IOC, they reduced the proposed number of male boxers to 246 to allow for a total of forty female fighters contesting in five weight categories—eight women for each.
Support for AIBA’s efforts was also requested from other quarters. Great Britain’s Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, made a strong pitch for allowing women to “take part in more masculine sports” including boxing, while conversely advocating for men to also appear in traditional women’s sports such as synchronized swimming. She also called on amateur sports organizations to heed her call by contacting the IOC.[4]
In June 2009 the AIBA proposal was revised to add three female Olympic weight categories with twelve boxers in each for a total of thirty-six competitors. The AIBA further proposed ten weight categories for men’s boxing, allowing for 250 competitors—one less weight category than had contested in 2008. The net effect was only four fewer female competitors than the AIBA had proposed in their initial submission; however, the limitation on the weight categories meant that with the exception of women who normally contested in one of the three weight categories (flyweight, lightweight, and middleweight) all others would need to gain or lose a substantial amount of weight (and in some cases muscle mass) in order to compete.
With the IOC’s announcement that women’s boxing would be included in the 2012 London Games, the women’s boxing world erupted. IOC president Jacques Rogge said, “I can only rejoice about the decision of inclusion of women’s boxing. The sport of women’s boxing has progressed . . . a tremendous amount in the last five years and it was about time to include them in the Games.”[5]
Now that women’s boxing was going to be an Olympic sport, the sixth AIBA Women’s World Championships in Barbados, held in September 2010, was bigger than ever with seventy-five countries represented and 306 women vying for medals. AIBA also sponsored a “Road to Barbados” training camp that offered forty women from less affluent nations an all-expenses-paid trip to Barbados for two weeks of training prior to the start of competition.
Previous champions Mary Kom, Ren Cancan, Katie Taylor, and Mary Spencer competed, with Kom winning an unprecedented sixth medal. The highlight fight of the competition was the semifinal battle between Katie Taylor and Queen Underwood. While Taylor easily took the first round, in the second and third Underwood pulled up to within five points going into the fourth and final round. From the moment the bell rang, Underwood relentlessly pursued Taylor—who actually had a point deducted for holding—but in the end Underwood fell two points short to give Taylor the win and the chance to box for the gold. Underwood won a bronze for her efforts.
Prior to the Barbados event, the question of issuing new uniforms specifically for women had been raised, mostly because the male tops were ill fitting. During the championship there was an announcement that a new uniform would be forthcoming. What no one knew until just before the semifinals got underway was that the uniform consisted of a skirt and a tight-fitting sleeveless shirt (called a vest). Teams were encouraged to have their fighters contest the semifinals and finals in the skirts. According to an e-mail received by boxing columnist Michael Rivest and published in his article about the skirts issue, many of the teams encouraged their fighters to wear the skirts for fear that the fighters would not be judged c
orrectly. However, of the forty competing athletes who’d been told to wear the skirts only fourteen complied.[6]
Rivest also spoke with AIBA’s Dr. Wu, asking why skirts were added:
I have heard many times people say, “We can’t tell the difference between the men and the women,” especially on TV, since they’re in the same uniforms and wearing headgear. We have a Women’s Commission that evaluated everything and they met and gave their recommendations. The uniform was presented [in Barbados] as optional.[7]
Backpedaling somewhat, the question of requiring skirts as part of the Olympic boxing uniform was deferred for further study and remained optional. Still, women felt betrayed by the controversy, with Katie Taylor stating, “I don’t even wear miniskirts on a night out, so I definitely won’t be wearing miniskirts in the ring.”
With the issue still undecided, petitions were circulated worldwide in late 2011, with more than fifty thousand signatures collected within two months. One of the women who started the petition on the website Change.org, boxer Elizabeth Plank, said, “It is all very demeaning. Our petition is not about a piece of fabric, it’s about athletes. It’s about their credibility.”[8]
It was not until March 2012, however, that the AIBA finally ruled that skirts were optional. With the official change, technical rule 8.1.3 now read: “For all AIBA Approved Events, Women Boxers must wear a red or blue form fitting vest and either shorts or the option of a skirt as per the Boxer’s respective corner allocation, which shall be their own responsibility.”
The decision on whether to require skirts was pushed out to the national organizations and most did not require their athletes to wear skirts in competition.[9]
During the time that the skirts issue was still looming, national entities began their national championships in 2011 in anticipation of the only Olympic female qualifying event: the seventh AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships to be held in Qinhuangadao, China, in May 2012.
A History of Women's Boxing Page 43