Despite making a brief appearance as a demonstration sport at the 1904 Olympic Games, women's boxing will make its official debut at the Games in London following an historic decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board in August 2009.

AIBA President and IOC member C K Wu was highly instrumental in helping to get the sport on the programme and Manisha Malhotra, the chairwoman of the AIBA women's commission, said it must use London 2012 as a platform to move forward.

"It's really important to focus on development of the sport overall," she said.

"Not just the boxers but referees and judges, international technical officials and women in management positions.

"We also want to create an identity for the women's sport with a new uniform and other ideas to differentiate women's boxing.

"The development work will aim to establish solid foundations for women's boxing as the sport grows over the coming years, with the work being carried out now paying its dividends for future generations."

Malhotra added she would like to see more women's weight categories for athletes to compete at the Olympic Games following London 2012.

Female Olympic boxers will compete in the three weight classes of flyweight (for boxers under 51kg), lightweight (for boxers under 60kg) and middleweight (for boxers under 75kg) at the London 2012 Games.

"London is just a start," she said.

"People will enjoy the product because there is a lot of high quality in women's boxing.

"We hope that the IOC would consider adding more women's weight categories after London 2012 but this can only be done if we produce a popular event."

Malhotra's comments came as all of the new AIBA Commissions - formed at the 2010 Congress in Kazakhstan in November last year - met for the first time at the AIBA head office in Lausanne over the past two weeks to prepare their work for the next four years.

The Commissions, covering all aspects of the sport, from the rules to officials and the athletes themselves, discussed a number of ideas and proposals that will be submitted to the AIBA Executive Committee later this year.

As well as the AIBA women's commission, the Technical and Rules Commission, the Refereeing and Judging commission, the Medical Commission, the World Series of Boxing Commission, the Athlete and Youth Commission and the Coaches Commission were all present.

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