Boxing returns for the 2024 Paris Games. Read on the learn about how athletes qualify for the Olympic tournament.
How many boxers qualify for the 2024 Olympics?
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A total of 248 boxers (124 men, 124 women) will compete at Paris 2024. Because there are fewer weight classes for women (6) than men (7), the women's tournaments will have more participants than the men's tournaments in most cases.
Each nation can qualify a maximum of one boxer per weight class. If a country is able to earn a spot in every single weight class, they will be able to take a full team of 13 boxers to Paris.
Are professional boxers allowed to qualify for the Olympics?
A rule change passed before the 2016 Games allows professional boxers to compete in the Olympics. In order to qualify, professional boxers would still need to compete in one of the official Olympic qualification tournaments. (Each nation can only send one boxer to these tournaments, so their participation would need to be approved by their country's governing body for boxing.)
Alternatively, a professional boxer could potentially earn a spot in Paris by receiving a universality invitation, which is reserved for athletes from countries with a historically small Olympic delegation.
How do boxers qualify for the 2024 Olympics?
Qualification for Paris 2024 takes place across three phases. Each one is described in more detail below. For all qualification tournaments, each participating nation can only send one athlete to compete.
There are six quota places (three for men, three for women) reserved for the host country. If France were to earn fewer than three men's spots and/or three women's spots through the qualification tournaments, they would be granted these additional host country quota spots to make up the difference.
In addition, there are nine universality invitations (five for women, four for men) available for athletes from countries with a historically small Olympic delegation.
Continental Qualification Tournaments (June – December 2023)
Each continent (Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania) held a qualification tournament last year. At each tournament, either one, two or four quota spots were available for the top finishers in each weight class, depending on the continent and the weight class.
World Qualification Tournament 1 (March 3–11, 2024)
Any countries who had not yet earned a quota spot in any given weight class were allowed to compete at the first World Qualification Tournament. In each weight class, anywhere from two to four quota spots were available for the top finishers.
World Qualification Tournament 2 (May 23 – June 3, 2024)
The final opportunity to earn a quota spot will come at the second World Qualification Tournament, which will be held in Thailand. Any countries who have not yet earned a quota spot in any given weight class are allowed to compete. In each weight class, anywhere from three to five quota spots will be available for the top finishers.
How do boxers qualify for Team USA?
The five boxers that earned an Olympic quota spot through the Pan American Games, which served as the continental qualifier for the Americas, qualified directly for the 2024 U.S. Olympic boxing team.
For any weight class that wasn't qualified through the Pan American Games, the winner of December's Olympic Trials advanced to a selection camp that determined which boxers would attend the World Qualification Tournaments. Most of the 2023 national team members received byes into that selection camp.
Earning a quota spot through either of the World Qualification Tournaments secures that boxer a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.