For the first time in nearly 40 years, male boxers will be competing without protective headgear at the Olympic Games, but female fighters will still wear the safety apparatus.
Protective headgear was introduced at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles as a way to guard against concussions. But ahead of its 2013 world championship, the International Boxing Association (AIBA) – the sports organization that oversees amateur boxing – got rid of the devices, citing research that says headgear leads to more concussions than it prevents.
“The athletes who didn't have headgear had a 43 percent decrease in the observable signs of concussions,” Dr. Charles Butler, chairman of the AIBA medical commission, told CTV News.
The reason? According to the AIBA, the equipment makes the head a bigger target, limits peripheral vision, and fails to protect the chin.
Citing insufficient concussion data for female athletes, the AIBA’s decision to keep headgear for women seems somewhat arbitrary in comparison.
Women’s boxing first appeared at the Olympics as a demonstration sport in 1904, but it wasn’t until the 2012 London Games that women were able to box competitively at the Olympics.
Removing protective headgear also has an added benefit for television viewers: we can now see fighters’ faces.
Critics, however, say the move increases the chance of fighters developing major facial cuts. While this isn’t necessarily a game-changing issue in one-off professional bouts, a fighter with a serious cut in a short multi-fight tournament like the Olympics could see himself disqualified if the bleeding becomes uncontrollable.
Dr. Charles Tator, a neurosurgeon with Toronto’s University Health Network, believes the change is short-sighted insofar as it does not take the cumulative toll of multiple hits to the head into account.
“We aren't only concerned about the blows that knock you out,” Tator told CTV News. “We are also concerned about all the ones that don't knock you out."
With a report from CTV’s Peter Akman and files from the Associated Press
