ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- The countries of Central Asia have once again found themselves trapped between a jealous, Russian-led entity and sanctions that would appear to damage their national interests.
But this time, the story is not about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine -- or at least not entirely.
It is about whether or not Central Asian boxing federations will be able to send boxers to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, providing there is still a boxing tournament to send them to.
This one takes some unpacking.
Tensions between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and amateur boxing's largest international body, the International Boxing Association (IBA), have simmered for more than a decade.
The IOC has repeatedly cited concerns over the governance and financial management of the IBA, as well as over alleged irregularities in the body's judging of bouts at major tournaments.
But the relationship has gone from very bad to worse since Umar Kremlev -- the head of Russia's boxing federation and an ally of sport-loving Russian President Vladimir Putin -- took charge of the Lausanne-headquartered organization in late 2020.
Last year, partly over concerns that the IBA had received significant funding from Russia's state-backed energy company Gazprom, the IOC formally excommunicated the IBA from the Olympic family.
And having organized the boxing tournaments at the Paris Olympics this summer and the Tokyo Games three years ago, outgoing IOC President Thomas Bach has said there will be no room for boxing in 2028 at all unless a new international body emerges to take over from the IOC.
Enter World Boxing (WB), which has garnered at least 42 confirmed members since it was founded in April 2023, according to its website, as it "aims to put the interests of boxers first and ensure that boxing remains at the heart of the Olympic movement."
It is so far unclear whether adding a few more will ensure the nascent organization becomes the IOC's new partner. But the leadership of WB reportedly enjoys good ties with the IOC, while the new group has one very obvious thing going in its favor -- it isn't the IBA.
And for those federations still undecided, there isn't much time left, after Bach suggested the question of whether boxing features at the Los Angeles games cannot wait longer than "early" 2025.
A Tense, Secret Vote
For the moment, nothing that either the IBA or WB have said would suggest that national federations can maintain membership in both organizations.
This binary choice was illustrated at an extraordinary conference of the Asian Boxing Confederation (ASBC) in Saudi Arabia's Al-Ain on August 31, where members of the regional grouping were asked to vote on whether to join the WB, as opposed to remaining in the IBA.
All five Central Asian federations participated in the secret ballot, which led to a 21-to-14 majority voting against moving the ASBC into WB.
Kremlev, who this month was named as the new owner of a nationwide car dealership nationalized by Russia in 2023, praised the "Asian continent's loyalty...signaling a promising future" in the wake of the vote.
In Central Asia at least, the reality looks to be a bit more complicated.
Olympic Boxing is a big deal for the Moscow-loyal region.
In total, nine of the 28 medals won by Central Asian athletes at the games in Paris last month were in boxing.
Officials in Uzbekistan, meanwhile, have spent recent weeks basking in the glow of the country's best-ever Olympic showing, spearheaded by the all-conquering men's boxing team that captured five gold medals.
It was somewhat surprising, therefore, that footage from the ASBC's extraordinary congress in Saudi Arabia showed the deputy head of Uzbekistan's boxing federation, Saken Polatov, make one of the strongest speeches in favor of Asian federations to not join WB prior to the vote.
Polatov called WB an organization "without developed infrastructure" but stressed that the most important thing it lacked was something that it may yet achieve -- "Olympic recognition." He added that preserving the "unity" of the Asian boxing federation was paramount.
A speaker introduced as a representative of Turkmenistan's federation suggested to delegates that the ASBC itself prepare to take on oversight of Olympic boxing, eschewing the IBA and its "problems," while challenging WB for the vacant mantle.
Eight Asian boxing federations were listed as members of WB on its official website prior to the Asian federation vote.
A WB representative contacted by RFE/RL said the organization also had eight pending applications to join the organization, but did not clarify how many were from Asia and said the identity of the applicants was "confidential."
Pichai Chunhavajira, who served as ASBC president before the vote and is also head of Thailand's boxing association -- not listed as a member on WB's website -- resigned after the ballot. Chunhavajira stressed his commitment to Asian boxers participating in the Olympics.
'Holding Talks With Both Organizations'
The Central Asian federations, for their part, are in no hurry to make bold declarations of allegiance.
RFE/RL was able to contact three of the five boxing federations.
Tamila Sarikhanova, a representative of the Uzbek federation and also a representative of the IBA, responded to RFE/RL but subsequently ignored questions about Tashkent's position.
Before the vote held last week, Kyrgyz boxing federation chief Umbetali Kydyraliev told RFE/RL that his federation "is trying to be a member of [both] World Boxing and the IBA."
But when contacted after the vote to confirm how his federation had voted, Kydyraliev said Kyrgyzstan was maintaining "neutrality," while "holding talks with both organizations."
That was also the line used by a representative of Kazakhstan's national boxing federation. But Kazakhstan's case is particularly intriguing.
Kazakh National Olympic Committee (NOC) Chairman Gennady Golovkin -- a former professional boxing world champion and a onetime Olympic silver medalist -- came out strongly in favor of his country joining WB even before the Paris Games began, in early July.
And he received a few jabs in the Russian press for doing so.
"I have known Gennady for 20 years. And I want to give him advice to think not about his own interests, but about boxers and trainers," said Eduard Kravtsov, the chairman of the Council of Coaches on Russia's national boxing team, in response to Golovkin's comments.
Kravtsov also warned Golovkin against heeding "the interests of biased people." The Kazakh NOC chief has stressed that the final decision on allegiance will be made by the Kazakh boxing federation, which is headed by Shakhmurat Mutalip.
A spokeswoman for the federation told RFE/RL that "no final decision" had been made on joining WB as yet and that Kazakhstan will continue to participate in IBA-organized tournaments "with the aim of uninterrupted preparation and bout practice for the national boxing teams."
Kremlev And The Kremlin
Russia, of course, has much less skin in the game when it comes to the Olympics.
Thanks first to a scandal over state-sponsored doping and secondly to Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian athletes last competed at a Summer Olympics under the Russian flag in 2016.
And one of the many IBA decisions that has widened the rift with the IOC was the one made in 2022 to allow Russian and Belarusian boxers to compete as representatives of their countries in IBA tournaments, at a time when other sports were busy banning them.
This all makes the IBA and the international tournaments it oversees an important remnant of sporting prestige for Moscow.
And under Kremlev the IBA has dangled carrots to members both in the form of giant cash prizes for Summer Olympics medal winners -- a move the IOC condemned -- and the potential for improved relations with the IOC once Bach leaves his post next year.
Kremlev has said more than once in the past that the IBA "has no issues with the Olympic movement itself."
But it would surely take a giant change inside the IOC for the committee to say the same of the IBA.
After the association's expulsion last year, IOC Director-General Christophe de Kepper called the relationship between the two organizations a "situation of no return," claiming the IOC had "patiently" waited for the IBA to demonstrate progress in all of the problem areas that the IOC noted.
Indeed, tensions between the two entities go back as far as the presidency of Taiwan's Wu Ching-kuo, who headed the IBA (then called the AIBA) from 2006 to 2017.
Wu was accused of presiding over financial irregularities as well as controversial judgements that affected the outcome of boxing bouts at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Then, with the AIBA already under an IOC investigation for its governance issues, members voted to elect Uzbekistan's Gafur Rahimov as the association's next leader.
Rahimov -- who has been for more than a decade under sanctions imposed by the United States due to his alleged ties to the global heroin trade -- lasted nearly two years before stepping down. He has repeatedly denied any ties to organized crime.
And relations deteriorated sharply again during the Paris Olympics themselves, when two boxers banned by the IBA over gender-eligibility testing that the IOC dismissed as "arbitrary" found themselves at the center of a media storm.
The furor was further whipped up by Kremlev, who branded the Paris Games "outright sodomy and the destruction of traditional values throughout the world," comparing Bach and his team to "pigs and hyenas."
