Apparently Wladimir Klitschko, the current multi-belt world heavyweight champion who won super-heavyweight gold at the 1996 Olympics, may be given an astonishing opportunity to repeat it at Rio 2016.

Last year, international governing body the International Boxing Association (AIBA) announced that professional boxers would be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games under certain conditions, and they have raised the age limit from 36 to 40.

The 38-year-old Klitschko previously had declared his interest in competing again in the Olympics, though it was thought the Ukrainian Boxing Federation would not endorse such a controversial move. However, as insidethegames has exclusively revealed, they have now said they would not rule it out.

While the new Olympic regulations prohibit the inclusion of pro boxers with more than 20 bouts, AIBA have strongly intimated that exceptions might be made for "superstar fighters". Presumably this includes not only Klitschko, but Floyd Mayweather jnr and Manny Pacquiao, who would be tremendous TV attractions. Which is obviously the object of the exercise.

Twenty years after winning gold at Atlanta 1996, could Wladimir Klitschko be back in the ring in Rio? ©Getty Images



Klitschko himself says: "I already have an Olympic gold medal and it would be fantastic to get another 20 years later. I'd like to think that in two years I will still have enough health and motivation to perform in the Olympics. It was while watching the Games in London that I decided this would be my dream."

In order to qualify for Rio, Klitschko, who holds all the alpha-belts - WBA, WBO and IBF - bar one (the WBC version recently vacated by elder brother Vitali fell into the clubbing hands of one Bermane Stiverne last weekend) would have to take part in AIBA's Pro Boxing (APB) tournament before the Games in order to qualify.

Just how realistic is this? Highly unlikely you would think, unless Wladimir had retired from the ring by then and had time to spare.

Yet while it may seem to defy logic, the L word is in not in abundant use in the fistic lexicon.

You can argue that it is brutally unfair – and highly dangerous - to allow fighters of the stature of Klitschko, Mayweather and Pacquiao, if so inclined, to pit their potentially lethal fists in Olympic competition against young tyros who are truly amateurs, notably from Africa and Asia.

But by introducing APB, in which elite boxers competing under largely professional rules are afforded preference for Olympic qualification, AIBA have already created a path of inequality to the Games.

So where does the International Olympic Committee stand in all this? Hardly in a neutral corner.

If National Basketball Association players can take part in the Olympics, as they did for the first time in Barcelona 1992, it will prove hard to stop professional boxers competing at the Olympics ©NBAE/Getty Images



By allowing fully-fledged pros, several of them global superstars, to take part in many sports, not least basketball, football, tennis, show jumping and ice hockey, they surely have opened the floodgates and may have set a precedent that could be successfully legally argued if any established pro boxer wished to compete in the Games.

If Britain can have Andy Murray in the Olympics, why not Amir Khan?

The resurgent Bolton fighter my well jump at the chance to improve on the silver medal he won in Athens - and Mayweather the bronze he took in Atlanta where Wladimir Klitschko won his gold.

Meantime "Dr Steelhammer" PhD, concentrates on helping fight the equally erudite Vitali's corner for Ukraine in their homeland's ongoing political struggle, insisting "Ukraine must stay as it is and not fall apart". An Olympian task in itself.

In the ring he also has a new ambition which may put any Olympic aspirations on hold.

The multi-lingual brothers always insisted they would never fight each other but now that 42-year-old Vitali has formally retired to the political arena, Wladimir plans to finally unify the division they dominated for the best part of a decade.

Stiverne's acquistion of Vitali's WBC belt, recognised as the most authentic of them all, with a sixth round stoppage of American Chris Arreola in Los Angeles, opens up a whole new fight game.

Wladimir is keen to challenge him to make a clean sweep of the titles once he has fulfilled his own obligation of a mandatory defence of his IBF belt against the unbeaten Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev.

Like Kubrat Pulev, Bermane Stiverne is not a name which springs readily to then lips, even of boxing's cognoscenti. But that of his promoter does - a certain Don King.

Bermane Stiverne, pictured with promoter Don King, is the first heavyweight champion not named Klitschko since 2008 ©Getty Images



Boxing's shock-haired Godfather has been resurrected, nudging 83, with his fighter's conquest of Arreola.

It is almost 40 years since King loudly proclaimed his advent with his promotion of the bizarre Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. His empire has crumbled in recent years as the richest prize in sport shifted base from north America to eastern Europe, but he now inimitably declares himself back in business: "Let the word go forth that I am back and so is the heavyweight title."

The much-travelled Stiverne, who fought for Canada as an amateur and trained in Florida earlier in his pro career, is the first heavyweight champion of Haitian descent and the first champ not named Klitschko since 2008

He is one of 14 children whose mother brought the family from impoverished Haiti to the United States, and then to Canada, when Bermane was 10. As an amateur, Stiverne stopped Liverpool's Olympic bronze medalist David Price in a 2004 tournament in Finland.

Las Vgas-based Stiverne came from behind to record his 13th  consecutive win on Saturday, and mentor King will certainly want him make them both a pile of money against less threatening contenders  (maybe such as Britons Tyson  Fury or Dereck Chisora) before taking on Klitschko or the huge American  hope Deontay Wilder.

Aka the Bronze Bomber - he was also a semi-finalist in Beijing - Wilder is a 6ft 7in monster of a puncher who has despatched all 31 opponents well inside four rounds, among  them former Olympic  champion Audley Harrison who was brutally blitzed in a few seconds.

The United States has not had a credible world heavyweight champion since Evander Holyfield held a version of the title 12 years ago. Now they see Wilder as the division's saviour.

Deontay Wilder could be the United States' best hope of righting the wrong of London 2012, when the country failed to win a single men's boxing medal for the first time ©Golden Boy/Getty Images



American failure to win a men's boxing medal at London 2012 was a matter of huge embarrassment – the first time it had happened in Olympic history.

Maybe Alabama-born Wilder is their only chance of winning one in Rio if he, like Klitschko, fancies pursuing another Olympic  dream.

Klitschko v Wilder in the Olympic super-heavyweight final? NBC's television executives must be drooling at the thought of it. Even with Don King one again calling the shots.

But such a prospect must have the original Olympic ringmaster Baron De Coubertin turning in his Lausanne grave.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.