Amateur boxing officiating takes another hit in London
Roar Guru The officiating at the London 2012 Olympic Boxing tournament has hit a new low overnight as Team USA boxer, Errol Spence lost on points to India’s Krishan Vikas before appealing the decision and having the result overturned.
It’s yet another hit for AIBA after the opening week of the competition has been plagued with poor judging and refereeing decisions.
Three Australian’s including 17-year-old Jai Opetaia were bundled out of the tournament on the back of poor decisions.
Opetaia took on world number 1, Teymur Mammadov on Thursday morning and after the fight was tied through two rounds, Opetaia in many peoples books did enough to progress to the Round of 16. The judges saw otherwise awarding the fight to Mammadov.
On the same morning there was yet more drama.
Referee, Ishanguly Meretnyyazov was handed a suspension following his poor performance in the fight between Satoshi Shimizu (Japan) and Magomed Abdulhamidov (Azerbaijan). The referee allowed Abdulhamidov to fall on the ground in the final round without calling any knockdowns or warnings.
Japan appealed the result and the decision was reversed, after their boxer originally lost 22-17.
The scoring system has also come under fire this week. UK boxer, Anthony Ogogo was awarded a countback victory over Ukraine’s Ievgen Khyrtov after their fight finished 52-52.
But the official Olympic website’s scorecard had the Ukraine boxer winning 53-52.
Team Ukraine appealed the decision, but were not successful after it was found that the official judges scorecards had the 52-52 total and Ogogo progressed.
When are the governing body going to take responsibility for their officials? Athletes put their bodies through hell for four years to get their chance to go to the Olympics, only for the judges to rip them off.
The Crowd Says (3) | Page 1 of Comments
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August 5th 2012 @ 3:06am
Johnno said | August 5th 2012 @ 3:06am | Report comment
-Roy Jones 1988 anyone.
August 5th 2012 @ 11:17am
gttommo said | August 5th 2012 @ 11:17am | Report comment
That is what I thought as well. I recently watched a clip about that Roy Jones Jnr fight and it is just unbelievable. Surely there is a way to improve the judging in boxing, this seems to happen too often.
August 5th 2012 @ 1:30pm
ko'd said | August 5th 2012 @ 1:30pm | Report comment
Think Jeff Fenech copped a poor Olympic decision via countback,could of been the first time he was ripped off fighting in America at 84 Olympics.I watched the japanese kids fight and blind freddy could see somethin just wasnt right with the refereeing l counted 5 times at least his opponent hit the deck with not one warning let alone a standing 8 count.