Lausanne (Switzerland), Jan 4 (IANS): The International Boxing Association (IBA) has signalled its continued commitment to sporting integrity in 2022 and beyond, by renewing its partnership with the International Testing Agency (ITA) for three years.

The agreement includes IBA outsourcing all anti-doping activities to the ITA, including testing, intelligence gathering, test distribution planning, education, and Therapeutic Use Exemption handling, as well as result management and the handling of anti-doping rule violations.

The full scope of the new agreement now also covers in-competition testing, long-term sample storage, intelligence and investigations, source handling, and the administration of the Reveal platform, in strict adherence to the World Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) International Standards.

The partnership agreement was previously signed in 2016, following the Rio 2016 Olympic boxing tournament, and has brought great progress and transparency to IBA anti-doping efforts in the years since.

"Through its work with many sports, the ITA has shown the usefulness of bringing in independent experts to help ensure sporting integrity. At IBA, we are committed to this approach. It is our duty to protect our athletes and reinforce the values of clean sport in boxing. Continuing our work with the ITA will ensure we do exactly that," IBA president Umar Kremlev said in a statement on Tuesday.

Benjamin Cohen, ITA Director General shared: "By entrusting the full range of its anti-doping programme to us at the ITA, we hope in turn that we can enable IBA to focus fully on its core mission of developing boxing, in a transparent manner, worthy of wider trust. We look forward to continuing to provide IBA and boxers with our expertise and are fully committed to supporting IBA in its fight against doping."

IBA will continue its work towards a better future for boxing and boxers in the New Year, following a roadmap to potential IOC reinstatement in 2023. Competitions that will fall under the renewed ITA partnership will include the IBA World Boxing Championships.