By Zack Chavez/USA Boxing
Richard Torrez Jr., a Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medalist and current professional American boxer, has been elected to the World Boxing Athletes Committee. During the committee election, which took place in Liverpool, England, during the 2025 World Boxing Championship, Torrez Jr. was announced as one of six athletes selected for the committee.
Torrez Jr. (Tulare, Calif./USA) was elected to the committee alongside Buse Naz Çakıroğlu (Turkey), Caitlin Parker (Australia), Daniel Pitt (Wales), Yojerlin Cesar (France) and Zareen Nikhat (India).
“I’m incredibly happy to be back on the Athletes Commission,” Torrez Jr. stated of his re-election to the committee. “It is an honor, and I’m just trying to give the voice for the athletes. “I think it’s a crucial part of World Boxing because, at the end of the day, everything is about the athlete,” Torrez Jr. elaborated on regarding the value of the committee. “The first few years were about creating rules and regulations for World Boxing, and how we could get boxing back to the Olympics. I think these next couple of years are where the voice really is going to matter and how we can make boxing great.”
Richard Torrez Jr.
Çakıroğlu, Pitt, Cesar and Nikhat join the committee for the first time, while Torrez Jr. and Parker were re-elected to the committee. The purpose of the World Boxing Athletes Committee is to provide advice, guidance and opinions to World Boxing, ensuring that the boxers comprising the organization have a voice in the development and future of the organization.
“I’m thankful for these elections because now we’re able to have a committee with different voices from different areas of the world. That’s incredibly important because what is my problem might not necessarily be the problem of someone in another continent,” Torrez Jr. noted about the importance of the World Boxing Athletes Committee.
Richard Torrez Jr.
The World Boxing Athletes Committee was voted on by the athletes in attendance at the 2025 World Boxing Championships. In addition to its role as a forum for discussing the needs of athletes, the group of six will nominate two of its members to serve as Athlete Representatives, who will be invited to attend and contribute directly to World Boxing Executive Board meetings and sessions of Congress.
