Times Online Reports
Eleven years after the British boxing authorities lost the argument against licensing women because they “bruised easily” and were made “unstable” by premenstrual tension, the fairer sex is on the brink of another victory in the equality fight.
Olympic chiefs meeting in Berlin on Thursday are expected to admit women’s boxing to the summer Games with a debut at London 2012.
It would be a landmark moment not only for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a male-dominated members’ club renowned for oldfashioned attitudes, but for the development of an increasingly popular sport among women and girls not naturally drawn to organised physical activity.
Advocates say that inclusion in the Olympics, where boxing is an amateur sport, is long overdue. It is the sole male-only summer discipline, after the pole vault and 3,000-metre steeplechase featured women at the 2000 and 2008 Games respectively.
Rebecca Gibson, the England women’s boxing development manager, said: “Women should be allowed to have a go at whatever they want. Being an Olympic sport would give women the same aspiration as men.”
The case for women’s boxing is driven by the sport’s international federation as well as Jacques Rogge, the IOC president and a former boxing doctor. A previous effort in 2005 failed after the IOC feared a lack of qualified talent would result in dangerous mismatches. Since then, the number of countries with women at the elite level has risen to 125.
In England the number of registered female boxers has jumped from 50 in 2005 to 642. There are about 670 in Britain. Among them is Hannah Behanny, 22, from London, a double European bronze medallist and 2012 hopeful. She started boxercise aged 17 after being sent to a reform centre for violent behaviour.
In a storyline to mirror the film Million Dollar Baby, she finally convinced a sceptical local coach to drop his male-only policy to train her. “The guys in my gym treat me as an equal but there are still some people stuck in the old school who think it shouldn’t happen,” she said.
“It’s ignorance. It’s the men that get bashed up and bloodied. Women’s boxing is more strategic. I’ve never seen a girl get knocked out.”
The Olympics would bring profile and funding to women’s boxing, which is high on the national fitness agenda. The Government is backing a return of non-contact boxing training to schools.
Women’s boxing first appeared in London in the 1720s and was a demonstration sport at the 1904 Olympics before being banned.The professional ranks in the UK admitted women in 1998 after losing a sex discrimination case brought by Jane Couch, who argued it was no more dangerous for women than men despite a medical expert for the British Boxing Board of Control claiming that they were “too frail”. Ms Couch retired last December, aged 40, with five world titles and is now a promoter.
The British Medical Association still campaigns for a ban on all boxing, male or female, on the ground that it can cause chronic brain damage, which accumulates over a career.
All amateur boxers, male or female, have to wear head and groin guards. Women have the option of wearing breast pads.
Gerry Willmott, a policeman who coaches women in Haringey, said: “Most people who see women’s boxing for the first time are surprised by the technical quality.
“Women don’t have preconceived ideas, so are more prepared to learn the basics. They don’t get in the ring thinking they are Ali or Mayweather.”
The admission of women’s boxing to the Olympics would give heart to the female ski jumpers still barred from the winter Games.
It might also encourage male synchronised swimmers, who were approved by world swimming’s governing body in 2000 but have yet to compete in an Olympics, to eschew stereotypes to make 2012 the first truly gender-neutral Games.
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