Flawed scoring system fails Ward

BOXINGTHERE IS optimism and pessimism travelling home from Trabzon. Optimism because as every sports administrator understands, the bigger picture is always a mix of politics, credibility and how well the athlete performs.

The optimism is that Katie Taylor is too big, too good, too successful and too important to the inaugural women’s boxing event at London 2012 to have anything mysterious derail her Olympic hopes in China at May’s World Championships. Even for a scoring system in which some Irish boxers may lack belief, three World and five European titles in succession as well as twice world boxer of the year actually mean something.

The pessimism comes from a scoring system that is fallible and one that in Joe Ward’s case threw up what most people believe to be an unjust result. How that happened will never be know, although Paddy Barnes’s unprintable opinion about the Trabzon Olympic Qualifying tournament is one that many people share.

Of the 10 finals on Friday Turkey was in five.

How big an injustice can be, when the scoring is decided by five judges who press a button each time they see a score, is the real issue. In such instances it is always a matter of proportion. But a look at the range of scores after each round of boxing can be revelatory.

In Saturday’s light welterweight final between Turkey and France, the first round was scored 0-0 by one judge and 4-2 by another, meaning there were six points one judge saw that the other judge did not.

In the second round of the same final one judge scored the three minutes 3-2 in favour of Turkey, while another judge saw the round 9-3 in favour of Turkey. Again, one judge saw five scores in total and the other 12 scores. On that variance of perception Olympic medals are won and lost.

But there is optimism elsewhere. The International Boxing Federation is a political animal and like the International Olympic Committee it will want the best boxers in London to decorate what is the biggest amateur boxing event on the calendar.

As federation president heavy hitter Dr Ching-Kuo Wu is also an IOC member, so regarding Ward’s poor treatment, the lines of dialogue should be clear. The nub is about who really wants the light heavyweight at the Olympics. At present the third-ranked boxer in the world is not going.

That is not to say he cannot.

There is a place available but one that is not supposed to be used for cases like that of Ward. The European slot is part of the now famous Tripartite Commission. But if the quota for the commission is not filled, that place could be bumped back to the federation. In turn, they may decide to use it in another way.

Billy Walsh is also optimistic. Two boxers from Great Britain qualified in Trabzon, the same as Ireland. Ireland has five at the Olympics. Russia has seven. There will be 78 European boxers in London from about 50 European countries. Five from Ireland stands up and, as Walsh says, they will all be looking for medals.

There are no personal bests or Irish records in boxing and the team has a reputation.

“Russia are not looking to let us back in and the Ukraine said they are not looking to get us back in so we’ll try and alter our plans,” said Walsh about the course of the next few months.

“We’ll speak to them again next week now that we have five boxers qualified and see if they will turn it around and allow us back in.

“We have a training camp in Ireland – we’ll have Kazakhstan and we’ll have Azerbaijan coming for 10 days in June – and then we’ll look for a camp 10 days before London outside of Ireland and then fly back into London for the games.”

The three who did not compete this week – Michael Conlan, John Joe Nevin and Darren O’Neil – have been ticking over. But Nevin’s jaw, which was broken fighting in the professional World Boxing Series, has been a concern.

“We’ll look at each individual and see who needs contests along the way. John Joe Nevin, who fractured his jaw, will be cleared to spar again on May 5th and he’s the only one who has not had any competition since he qualified,” said Walsh. “He has enough time, he’s been training. He was in the Ukraine with us – he obviously didn’t compete but he’s training away. He’ll be in good enough shape and we just need to get him into the ring to spar again.”

On 18-year-old Ward, there is a flicker of hope too, even if it is based on a mix of righteousness and blissful ignorance.

“We are going to keep Joe Ward training all the time in case something happens behind the scenes,” said Walsh.

“The decision won’t be made for a month and in the meantime he’ll be training away.”