LONDON: Former World and Olympic champion Lennox Lewis has slammed a proposal to allow professional boxers to compete at the Olympics, saying that it could be dangerous for young amateur boxers.

Lewis won super-heavyweight gold for Canada at the 1988 games in Seoul before turning professional and switching to represent Britain as unified heavyweight world champion.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Sportsweek programme: “I kind of think it is preposterous, to a certain degree. The amateur system is based for amateurs — this is why we put in the headgear to protect them because they have a lack of experience and they are not that primed as a professional yet.

“Now all of a sudden, you get a world champion or somebody in the top 10 as a professional now going against basically an amateur, somebody with a lack of experience — I don’t look at that as being fair.”

Lewis pointed to current British world champion Anthony Joshua, who won the gold medal in the same super-heavyweight division at the 2012 Olympics in London to illustrate his concerns.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2016