The Japan Pro Boxing Association and Japan Boxing Commission jointly held an online meeting on Aug. 17 and decided to soften the ongoing regulations that forbid boxers belonging to a certain gym to do sparring sessions at a different gym or gyms to avoid possible contamination of the novel coronavirus.

The decision is a reversal in the JPBA’s request late July that such sparring sessions among different gyms were not advisable after a cluster of coronavirus cases occurred in Osaka, western Japan, around that time.

But since the number of boxing bouts is gradually increasing, both the JPBA and JBC came to a decision that will permit those boxers who have tested negative for exposure to the bacteria of COVID-19 on the condition that they submit their request to practice at different gyms and doctors’ medical examination sheets.

The JPBA also said Japan-based former three-time world champion Jorge Linares of Venezuela, who belongs to Tokyo’s Teiken Gym and was found to be infected with the novel coronavirus on Aug. 6, was released from the hospital to recuperate at home.