Boxing is a noble art: AIBA president

LAUSANNE, Switzerland: Boxing on Thursday withdrew from the World Combat Games amid a bitter row between the organisers of the event and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The International Boxing Association (AIBA) also suspended its membership of Sport Accord, which organises multi-sport events like the Combat Games but whose leader Marius Vizer made a scathing attack on IOC chief Thomas Bach last month.
Boxing is the latest of a number of sports, including athletics, to quit Sport Accord over the dispute.
“Boxing is a noble art and a traditional Olympic sport and we feel that the participation in the World Combat Games challenges this identity among boxing fans,” AIBA president Wu Ching-Kuo said.
“It is with much regret that we suspend our membership with SportAccord with immediate effect. AIBA’s work is based on the Olympic values and it is the values of integrity and respect that we must protect first and foremost,” he added.
Rivalry between Vizer and Bach went public at Sport Accord’s annual convention last month when Vizer, head of the International Judo Federation, demanded more power for the sporting federations on the IOC.
He blasted the IOC system and its leaders as the “cardinals” and “popes” of sport who tried to block his attempts to organise multi-sport events.
The AIBA had been a member of SportAccord since 1967 and had took part in the World Combat Games in Saint-Petersburg in 2013 and in Beijing in 2010.