Manny Pacquiao is looking to come out of retirement to compete at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, despite a potential age limit being enforced on fighters.
Philippine Olympic Committee President Abraham Tolentino claimed that the 44-year-old is exploring a return to the ring in the French capital, where he will have to rely on being awarded a universality place.
Senator Pacquiao’s camp reached out saying our Filipino ring idol wants to fight in Paris,” Tolentino said in a statement, as reported by ABS-CBN.
“But the Senator can no longer vie for qualification in the Asian Games in Hangzhou next month.”
Hangzhou 2022, an Olympic qualifier, has an age limit of 40 years old for all sports.
For the Tokyo 2020 boxing tournaments, competitors had to be born between January 1 1980 and December 31 2002 to be eligible to fight.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) staged the boxing events following its suspension of the International Boxing Association (IBA) and is due to do the same again for Paris 2024.
The IOC’s Paris 2024 Boxing Unit’s event regulations state that “men and women boxers between the ages of 19 to 40 are categorised as boxers”.
The Unit has, for the most part, adopted the regulations in place at Tokyo 2020 but does maintain that it “has the right to make a final decision regarding a boxer’s eligibility” for Paris 2024.
However, he could be awarded a universality place by the IOC.
There are nine such places available, five for women and four for men, with National Olympic Committees invited to submit requests between October 1 and January 15 2024.
The confirmation of universality places is then due to take place on June 7 2024.
Pacquiao currently weighs 66 kilograms and will have to choose between the under-63.5kg or under-71kg categories that are on the Paris 2024 programme.
Pacquiao, a former eight-division world champion, ended his career with 62 wins, eight losses, and two draws and was ranked as the greatest southpaw fighter of all time by boxing historian Bert Sugar.
Historically boxers had been prohibited from competing in the Olympic Games after turning professional, before that was changed in 2016 by the IBA.
As a result, Pacquiao has never fought at the Olympics but he did participate in the Beijing 2008 Parade of Nations as the Philippines’ flagbearer, making him the first-ever non-participant to serve in the role.
Following his athletic career, Pacquiao entered politics and served as Senator of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022.
He then ran for the country’s Presidency but finished third in the 2022 election.
In 2016, he could have competed at the Rio Olympics but decided not to after being elected to the Senate in May of that year.
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