ANOTHER Olympic Games, another major controversy – and again Irish boxers find themselves at the heart of it.
The Times reported on Friday that two of the judges involved in Daina Moorehouse’s Paris exit were deemed to be at “high risk” of manipulating bouts, with both stood down during the 2021 World Championships in Serbia.
Although Moorehouse appeared to be a clear winner, Emil Gurbanaliyev from Azerbaijan and Russian Sergei Krutasov both scored the fight for her French opponent Wassila Lkhadri, alongside judges from Canada and India.
Indeed, Gurbanaliyev gave all three rounds to Lkhadri.
“I didn’t feel like when I was in there that I was losing,” said the Bray woman after the fight.
“When you know you’re getting beaten, you’re getting beaten, but I definitely didn’t feel like I was losing.”
Gurbanaliyev and Krutasov were also judges in the fight that saw Grainne Walsh exit last Sunday - a bout when the referee failed to punish the persistent holding of Hungarian Anna Luca Homori – while Krutasov was on duty for Aidan Walsh’s questionable defeat to Frenchman Makan Traore.
The Irish coaching staff and high performance director Tricia Heberle were left particularly exasperated by the scoring of the Moorehouse fight, with head coach Zaur Antia saying: “Anyone with eyes could see it was 5-0 every round, but I knew after it was 3-2 in the first round…”
According to The Times, Gurbanaliyev and Kruatasov were randomly selected for integrity testing by Professor Richard McLaren at the World Championships, run by the International Boxing Association (IBA), three years ago.
McLaren carried out a comprehensive report on judging at the 2016 Rio Olympics, when Michael Conlan’s hugely controversial defeat to Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin became one of the biggest stories of the Games.
The pair’s answers pertaining to the corruption of bouts raised alarms and they were both removed from the referees and judges pool at the championship in Belgrade. Neither has commented publicly on their removal.
Subsequently the IBA were suspended and then banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) amid concerns over its finances, governance, ethics, refereeing and judging. An IOC boxing taskforce took over the running of Olympic boxing at the Tokyo and Paris Games.
Neither Gurbanaliyev nor Krutasov were involved in Tokyo but re-emerged in Olympic qualifying events run under the auspices of the IOC.
The IOC said it is not privy to McLaren’s findings as the information was not publicly available, and that both judges had passed background checks and vetting processes.
The revelations about Gurbanaliyev and Krutasov is a further blow to the sport’s reputation, with Ireland not the been only country impacted by controversial judging. Team GB were up in arms following the controversial exit of welterweight Rosie Eccles, while Team USA coach Billy Walsh was left shocked when Roscoe Hill lost out to France’s Billal Bennama.
“It’s been a very difficult tournament for everybody,” said the Wexford man.
“If you look at a lot of the top teams haven’t really got the results that they thought they were going to get. It’s been difficult, there’s been some controversy in the judging and all of that.
“I think, in general, we are where we are. We’ve got to deal with what we’ve got to deal with. It’s been tough, they’ve had some very tight 3-2 split decisions, flip of a coin, could’ve went anywhere.
“A lot of teams have had that, it hasn’t been this singular for any individual team. It’s happened to all.”
Asked about the Moorehouse decision, he added: “On another day she’d have got it. She should’ve got it, maybe. We’ve had a couple of those ourselves, Roscoe… if you’re fighting a Frenchman in France, it’s hard to get all that sort of stuff.
“We have to suck it up. Get on it with it.”
