After his lightweight stand-out Mikaela Mayer lost her quarter-final on points to Russian Anastasia Beliakova last night, USA boxing coach Billy Walsh, formerly of this parish, aired similar grievances to his former colleague Zaur Antia.
The 26-year-old Mayer had seemed destined since Walsh's acrimonious departure from Irish boxing to meet Katie Taylor in an Olympic final, but both women have exited the tournament in its primitive stages with two relatively controversial defeats.
Of his new charge's majority decision reversal, a furious Walsh said to reporters:
To be honest, I've just had a look at the judging. It was crazy. Are they looking at the same bloody fight or what?
Her performance was excellent, she gave everything she had ... I thought she did enough to win it.
Mayer, however, admitted that by leaving the fight so close she gave the judges an excuse to oust her (although it turns out they don't even need one, such has been the flagrant ghoulery from judges at these Games):
It was a close fight so it makes it even more disappointing.
I thought I might have pulled it off at the end but ... I also know this is boxing. If you let a fight get that close, you don't know who they are going to give it to.
Perhaps most concerning from an Irish perspective is that three Russian fighters have progressed in either close or extremely controversial (or last night, downright disgraceful) circumstances, and Ireland's last remaining fighter Michael Conlan fights one of them later today.
[Reuters]
