Beleaguered Olympic boxing has a new look in Paris: Gender parity, but the smallest field in decades

AP Sports Writer

Olympic boxing in Paris will see big changes to the sport’s traditional structure. Give or take a few last-minute additions or dropouts, half of the 248 boxers in Paris will be women. That’s a milestone justly heralded across the sport, but the Olympics got there by sharply cutting the number of male boxers to make an overall field that will be the smallest in Olympic boxing since 1956. While there will be 23 more women fighting in Paris than in Tokyo three years ago, there will also be 63 fewer men fighting in only seven weight classes. That’s the fewest since 1908.