Skirts optional for women boxers at London Games

Women boxers will have the choice of wearing skirts or shorts in the ring at this year's London Olympics, the sport's world governing body said on Sunday.

A spokesman for the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) said the executive committee would vote "in the next few days" on the proposed solution to what has become a controversial issue.

AIBA president Wu Ching-Kuo told a world conference on women and sport in Los Angeles on Saturday that female fighters would not be forced to wear skirts.

"Some women want to wear shorts and some want to wear skirts," he said. "So the decision we have made is that we shall make it optional because many boxers are undecided."

Women's boxing is making its Olympic debut at the London Games in July and August with three gold medals on offer.

Several women boxers have criticized attempts to encourage them to wear skirts for what seemed to be purely aesthetic reasons. The women were offered skirts for the first time at the 2010 world championships in Barbados.

Romanian and Polish women boxers wore skirts at the European championships in Romania in 2010, with the Poles making them compulsory.