Mayweather, Jones, and Holyfield were robbed of Olympic gold. Discuse

You could draw up a list as long as a giraffe's neck of fighters who were robbed of winning an Olympic gold or the opportunity to fight for one. Apparently all of the opponents of Korean who was awarded the decision over Jones were hard done by. The Koreans were still pissed at the Americans from the Olympics four years earlier in Los Angeles, where they and many nations competing in those games felt their fighters had been robbed by biased American judges.

Seeds of discontent sown in ‘84

In 1984 with the Olympics held in Los Angeles, the US boxing team dominated the competition, taking out nine of the 12 gold medals on offer [1]. A major contributor to the unprecedented success of the US boxing team was the absence of the dominant soviet block nations, in particular amateur boxing giant, Cuba. However, many do not hold these absences as solely accountable; there remains to this day a widespread belief that the judging of the 1984 Olympic boxing tournament was heavily biased towards the U.S. team. Throughout the course of the competition there were many questionable decisions and rulings in favour of the US team. When US competitor Henry Tillman, in the inaugural heavyweight competition, was given a decision win over Angelo Musone, the verdict was criticised in Italian newspapers as, ‘hallucinatory’ and ‘scandalous’ [2]. After losing a close decision to Steve McCrory of the USA in the flyweight gold medal bout, Redzep Redzepovski of Yugoslavia complained, ‘As long as an American is standing on his feet for three rounds it is hard to get a decision over him [3]”. Redzep’s comments were strongly supported by the simple fact that 37 of the 38 bouts that went the full three rounds involving Americans, were decided in their favour.

The most vocal opposition to the officiating came from the Korean team. On paper the Koreans looked to have a strong team with a number of boxers considered to be in medal contention. However, as the Koreans failed to live up to their own lofty expectations, their attention turned to the American officials. The Koreans were particularly incensed by the dubious victory of light welterweight Jerry Page of the U.S over Kim Dong-kil [4]. After losing by a score of 4-1, a storm of protests were lodged by the Korean officials. Soo-In Oh, the vice president of the Korean delegation lodged a formal protest against the judging off the match and even went as far as to threaten to withdraw the entire boxing team from further competition. Oh would later admit that the threat was primarily an attempt to call attention to a string of controversial pro-US decisions [5]. The Koreans’ outrage was supported in all corners with many journalists, including the correspondent of the Los Angeles Times, expressing their opinion that Kim had won [6].


Despite the Koreans’ belief that the medals were practically being handed to the Americans, there were examples of fortune going the other way. The one decision to go against an American boxer was awarded in favour of Korea’s Shin Joon-sup. Shin was given the decision in a very close middleweight final against Virgil Hill. No less then four out of Shin’s five wins came by split decision [7]. Further, when Australian Renato Corbett was awarded a 3-2 victory over Korean Chil-sung Chun, the decision was overturned and Chun was given the 4-1 victory [8]. Further, what is regarded as the worst decision of the tournament was against American Evander Holyfield. In his light heavyweight fight with Kevin Barry of New Zealand, Holyfield let rip with a brutal two punch combination, a left to the ribs followed by a left hook. Barry was knocked out but the referee, Gligorije Novocic of Yugoslavia, disqualified Holyfield for a late hit claiming he had called stop after the first blow to the body. When the decision was announced Barry turned to Holyfield and said, ‘you won the fight fair and square.’ Before raising the American’s hand [9].

Despite the hope that the Joon-sup’s middleweight win would have a cathartic affect on the Korean team, it seemed that the Koreans would not soon forget their treatment at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Korean team Vice President Oh was quoted as saying, "The judging has been quite unfair so far. We came here to learn a lot about the Olympic Games, because we are the hosts in 1988, and we've decided there's nothing to learn” [10]. Despite Oh’s claims it is felt that the Koreans did learn from the games and much of what they learned was applied at the 1988 Seoul Olympics to the detriment of their international competition. After the Jones decision there were accusations that officials of the Korea Amateur Boxing Federation had bribed or otherwise persuaded some of the judges as a payback for pro-U.S decisions at the 1984 Olympics [11].

 

Park Si-hun

Park Si-hun, the Korean light middleweight representative is considered to be among the least deserving gold medallists in Olympic history [6]. Although Park was not without talent, having previously won gold at the boxing world cup in 1985 defeating US boxer Kevin Bryant, in the Olympic tournament he benefited from no less than five consecutive home-town decisions. After receiving a first round bye, Park***8217;s first bout ended when he landed two illegal blows, to the hip and kidney of his Sudanese opponent Abdalla Ramdan. Though the blows should have resulted in Park***8217;s disqualification, Australian referee Ronald Gregor was hesitant, undoubtedly haunted by the attack on the New Zealand referee five days earlier. Gregor consulted with the judges who deemed a disqualification to be inappropriate as Park had not been previously cautioned. As such, with Ramdan unable to continue, Park was declared the winner [7]

The luck continued to go Park***8217;s way in the third round when he was awarded a unanimous decision over one of the favourites, Torsten Schmitz of East Germany, in a bout that most observers felt Schmitz had done enough to win. Having progressed to the quarter finals Park was matched with Vincenzo Nardiello of Italy. Once more most thought Park had surely been eliminated but once more Park took the decision. After two rounds Nardiello had been ahead on all five score cards, two of the judges also felt he won the third but the other three judges awarded Park the final round by such a wide margin he took the fight 3-2. Nardiello crumpled to his knees and pounded the canvas when the decision was awarded against him. He then charged out of the ring and began screaming at the judges. Italian team officials managed to drag Nardiello to the dressing room only for him to race back out to the ring crying and screaming [8]

Park***8217;s blessed run continued into his semi final match against Canada***8217;s Ray Downey. For the fourth straight time neutral observers thought Park***8217;s tournament had come to an end, only for him to be awarded another dubious unanimous decision. By now Park had earned himself the moniker, ***8216;The Unbeatable Park Si-Hun