Repeat of Roy Jones robbery at Seoul Games possible with change in AIBA scoring system

Talk to any amateur boxer and they will tell you a story of how they have felt frustration at losing a bout which would have taken them to the Olympics. Or even at the Games.

The judging/scoring system in amateur boxing is one of the most contentious in sport. Roy Jones Jnr lost to the Korean Park Si-Hun in a controversial final at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Computerised scoring was introduced as a result of the controversies at the 1988 Games in Seoul.

Jones, who went on to achieve legendary status in the professional ranks, was the victim of what is generally regarded as the worst decision in boxing history.

Jones came up against South Korean Park Si-hun in the light-middleweight gold medal fight, and landed double the punches of his opponent.

There were other ‘suspicious’ matches during those Games, and the then International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch threatened to remove boxing from the Olympics.

It is before my time writing on boxing, but I have seen the contest, and Jones wins it clearly.

The outrage, and an appeal, mattered little. He left the Seoul Games with the silver medal and went on to have a stellar professional career.

There were allegations then of judges decisions being rigged. They went all the way, in some accounts, back to the involvement of the Stasi, the East German secret police.

World amateur boxing is mired in smokescreens, controlled at its head by the dictatorship of Dr Ching Kuo Wu, the president of the International Amateur Boxing Association.

Dr Wu, an astute politician, with links to the IOC hierarchy, and a voting member, has said he will examine the allegations, made by a BBC2 Newsnight investigation, that matches were to be fixed at next year’s Games, were “untrue and ludicrous” but the judging system is more open to question than ever before, particularly because the scores are not to be shown until the end of each of the three, 3-minute rounds.

That rule change came in in March this year. Previously, the ongoing score could be seen as the bout progressed. To score, five judges, in different positions around the ring, will depress a red or blue button, the boxers represented for one or the other of the boxers, for each scoring punch.

The obfuscation of the scores until the end of the round need not have been implemented. A grey area is only likely to become even more confusing, for both protagonists, and spectators alike.