Op-Ed: Oscar De La Hoya: Keep professional superstars out of Olympic boxing

In its latest scheme to “revitalize” a sport that remains popular around the world, AIBA — the organization that governs international boxing — has decreed that it will hold a vote at the end of May to potentially allow professional boxers to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. But I hope they come to their senses and keep superstars out of the ring.

Imagine you’re a young amateur boxer and you’ve worked your entire young life with one goal in mind: an Olympic medal. You’ve done hundreds of miles of roadwork; you’ve lived in the gym; you’ve sacrificed youthful indiscretions; you’ve missed school; and you’ve counted calories to keep on weight.

If you know you’re up against the best amateurs in the world, that’s hard enough; but if you have to face a superstar like Manny Pacquiao, you’ll wonder if you should even bother competing. An amateur fighter is almost sure to lose against any professional, eliminating his opportunity to launch his career.

It’s true that weight maximums — standard in the Olympics — even the playing field among amateurs; but they hardly guarantee a fair fight when there’s a professional in competition. Professionals skew older and there’s a significant difference between a 175-pound teenager and a 175-pound twentysomething.

Almost all boxers eventually move up in weight as their bodies fill out. They’re not just getting heavier; they’re attaining what I call their “man strength” — their peak form. This tends to happen around a fighter’s 24th or 25th birthday, and it simply doesn’t make sense to pit a fighter who hasn’t yet reached his ideal weight against one who has.

Compare amateur fighter Charles Conwell with professional Amir Khan.

At 18, Conwell is deservedly among the most highly regarded fighters on Team USA and has already qualified for the 2016 Games in the middleweight division. Slick and strong, Conwell is expected to compete for a medal.

At 29, Khan is a British superstar who fought in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, taking home silver in the same 132-pound division where I won gold in 1992. On May 7, Khan will face Canelo Alvarez for the middleweight championship of the world in Las Vegas in the biggest boxing event of 2016.

If Conwell were to draw Khan, it would be a total mismatch, and Olympic officials would have to answer for putting Conwell into a dangerous situation.

Although Alvarez and Khan are meeting at a 155-pound catch weight and Conwell can come into the Olympics as heavy as 165, these boxers are not equals. Conwell is still growing into his body. Khan is a man in his prime who has already been to war in the ring on dozens of occasions.

Of course this isn’t just a matter of brute strength. Experience, as is the case in many other pursuits, is a valuable commodity for a fighter in the ring. The more rounds that a boxer has fought, the smarter he will fight and the better he will be offensively and defensively.

Nearly a quarter-century ago, when I was just an amateur boxer, I stood atop a podium in Barcelona and was presented with what I still consider the greatest prize of my career — the Olympic gold medal. Had professionals been allowed to participate in the ring that year, I would not have made it so far.

Come this summer, Conwell will hopefully become the first American gold medal winner in the sport of boxing in a dozen years, while Alvarez and Khan will put on a war for millions of fans in a professional fight.

Meanwhile, the AIBA should focus on its job — improving boxing in a way that draws more young people to the sport and fans to the stands and not subject aspiring Olympians to potential heartache, pain and defeat before they even enter the ring.

Oscar De La Hoya is a retired professional boxer and the founder of Golden Boy Promotions, a boxing promotion company based in Los Angeles.

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