By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Women’s boxing in the 2012 Olympic Games in London got a major boost when International Olympic Committee president Jacque Rogge backed its inclusion.

BBC Sport reported that Rogge is supporting plans to stage four women’s categories in 2012 saying “ conditions are totally different now. The timing is right because the sport has evolved a lot."

The IOC president noted that the International Amateur Boxing Associationor AIBA has a proposal on the table that has not yet been finalized in which it would reduce the current 11 divisions for men to 9  by reshuffling the weights and they would add four women’s categories.

Dr. Rogge, a physician by profession said AIBA made its first application in 2005 but that time “they did not have enough universality and they did not have enough countries and also from a medical point of view, there was a big discrepancy in the same weight category, between skills and the level of the women.”

He pointed out that “ you would have had very sophisticated boxers against very junior boxers in the same weight category which in boxing is dangerous." Rogge said they would have to wait a new years, adding that now, four years later " we’ve studied again with the medical commission of the IOC  and they have said no problem and we are satisfied that there is a far greater universality as well.”

The IOC president said that ultimately the decision whether to include women’s boxing in 2012 rests with the IOC executive board rather than the full IOC Congress. He explained “that’s because it’s a discipline within a sport, not a new sport.

Rogge told BBC Sports that “ once the (AIBA)  proposal is finalized it will be decided by the IOC executive board in December.”

An AIBA spokesman said that negotiations on details are still on-going with the IOC. The spokesman was quoted as saying they have looked  at reducing the men’s weight categories to 10  but not nine adding “all the same we are very encouraged by Dr. Rogge’s words and gives AIBA great hope of receiving some good news from the IOC executive board in August.”