(JULY 4)  The International Boxing Federation (AIBA) is among the first international federations for an Olympic sport to officially join the newly-established International Testing Agency (ITA). Following its previous relationship with the Doping Free Sports Unit of the Global Association of International Sports Federations, AIBA is fully outsourcing its anti-doping activities to the International Testing Agency (ITA), including testing, result management (for any anti-doping rule violations), intelligence-gathering, test-distribution planning, education and TUE exemptions.

Tom Virgets, Executive Director of AIBA, said “Protecting our athletes and the integrity of our sport is of utmost importance and anti-doping is at the top of AIBA’s priorities. Our partnership with the ITA offers a new scope of anti-doping activities that our athletes and our officials can benefit from – we are looking forward to rolling out these programmes as soon as possible.”

The move reaffirms AIBA’s strong efforts to bring positive change and further improvements to its governance and anti-doping system, which has been a top priority for the AIBA Interim President. In close collaboration with ITA, AIBA will remain involved in anti-doping education for boxers and member federations.

Gafur Rahimov, Interim President of AIBA, said “AIBA is committed to clean sport and I am pleased that we are amongst the first Olympic International Federations to join the ITA. This new partnership is very much aligned with AIBA’s strategy going forward and represents a big milestone for our organisation and the future of boxing.”

Benjamin Cohen, Director General of the ITA, said “Ensuring clean competitions is central to the integrity and reputation of any sport. AIBA’s proactive approach is completely consistent with the ITA’s position as an independent and trusted partner in the protection of clean sport. By entrusting the full range of its anti-doping programme to us at the ITA, we hope in turn that we can enable AIBA to focus fully on its core mission of developing boxing. We look forward to providing AIBA with our expertise and are fully committed to support AIBA in its fight against anti-doping.”