Punching the Wrong Man

Controversial Punch: Great Britain's Freddie Evans' win over Canada's Custio Clayton is subject to an appeal

Changing one’s daily time table to watch the favourite athletes in action in Olympics seems to be catching up in India. Only this time it turned out to be more disappointing than before in the ExCel Exhibition Center for the Boxing event. Thanks to the Referee Decision Imbroglio.  It adds to the agony when one finds himself invariably at the receiving end. 

India sent the strongest ever Boxing contingent to the Olympics 2012 with a hope of getting few medals and why not? There were 8 pugilists in the fray, each qualifying in style and authority at different qualifying tournaments. With the likes of Vijender Singh, Devendro Singh, Manoj Kumar, Sumit Sangwan, Mary Kom and others, Indians were quite upbeat about the event and the medals in specific, but the result unfolded another story. While three of them had tougher opponents, the rest fought bravely only to be denied to reach a higher round for reasons better known to the judges.

While AIBA overturned the result of Indian welterweight pugilist, Vikas Krishan’s victory over American Errol Spence, India’s Manoj Kumar in the 64 kg weight category was not so lucky. He lost to the crowd favourite and home grown Thomas Stalker 16-20. India’s Sumit Sangwan seemed to be a clear winner against Yamaguchi Falcao Florentino of Brazil in light heavy weight (81kg) category, but the judges decided otherwise. He lost 14-15 to the Brazilian much to the surprise of the commentators and spectators. The BBC termed it as “Broad daylight robbery”. It would be interesting to note the Brazilian’s march to the semifinals and eventually losing out to the Gold Medalist Egor Mekhontsev of Russia. After defeating the Indian in the controversial Round of 32, the Brazilian tied up with his Chinese opponent, Meng Fanlong 17-17, only to be declared winner in the reverse count. In the quarter final, he over powered World No.1, Cuban, Julio la Cruz Peraza by 18-15. Cuban Boxing Federation did not have enough money to appeal at AIBA since it costs $500 every time an appeal is lodged. Finally justice prevailed at the semi-final when the Brazilian lost to the eventual winner in a one sided affair, 11-23. 

The BBC reported saying the matches could have been fixed. They said, “We were told $9M had been paid by Azerbaijan to the International Boxing Authorities in return for two medals”. However, the International Boxing Federation (AIBA) denied this report and any wrong doing as IOC did not find any formal evidence of cash for medals.

On 1^st of August, in the bantam weight category, Azerbaijan’s Magomed Abdulhamidov played against Satoshi Shimizu of Japan. The Japanese pugilist floored his opponent at least six times in the final round but lost the fight, much to the dismay of the crowd and the commentators. After an appeal by Japan, the decision was overturned, Magomed was out from the next round, the Japanese fighter was reinstated and the referee was sent back on the next plane to Turkmenistan. 

As if this was not enough, a few days later another Azeri, Teymur Mammadov defeated Belarusian pugilist Siarhei Karneyeu in a narrow margin. In the third round, he committed a number of “Holding” fouls but was not penalized. The decision was not upheld this time even after the appeal by Belarus.

Boxing had its fair share of scandals and accusations of match fixing. At the Seoul Olympics in 1988 when the American Boxer, Roy Jones Junior lost to his South Korean opponent, three judges were suspended amid accusations that the boxing authorities had been bribed $2M by South Korea in return for two Gold Medals.

 Siarhei Karneyeu lingered in the ring after his Olympic heavyweight loss on August 5th, crying and shaking his head in disbelief after his clutching, holding opponent was awarded a narrow decision victory. When Cuba`s Jose Larduet fell victim to a similar decision about 15 minutes later, the Belarusian Karneyeu came back up the fighters` tunnel and intercepted Larduet on the way out of the ring, holding up Larduet`s hand as the real winner. Both Karneyeu and Larduet felt cheated by their opponents` clutch-and-grab tactics in the Olympic boxing tournament Sunday night, but amateur boxing`s governing body disagreed.

There were at least a dozen more bouts where the decisions looked exactly opposite to what was witnessed by commentators and spectators but I guess I would leave it for some other day. What needs to be seen is, will it continue in Rio or Will Justice Prevail?

:- Rakesh S Ranbir