The ugly head of corruption has raised its head in the world of boxing once again, as Ireland’s latest bright talent had her Olympic medal dreams dashed after a disgraceful decision.
Grainne Walsh was the latest victim of the dreaded dodgy scorecards as she lost to her opponent Aneta Rygielska, despite dominating the fight.
The Polish fighter was given a standing eight count and was even docked a point for persistent holding, a punishment only given out when a fighter is clearly just trying to survive the bout and not actually competing to win.
Despite this, three of the judges – from Norway, Argentina and Morocco – awarded the round to the Pole, and was only ahead on two of the judges’ cards with the scores level on the others.
Due to the sudden-death nature of the competition, those three judges were asked for a verdict and all opted for Rygielska, even though Walsh had 142 points to the Pole’s 138.
There is one more Olympic qualification tournament that Walsh could fight in, but she might not even get the opportunity to do so because Irish stars Amy Broadhurst and Lisa O’Rourke are in her weight class.
Broadhurst is the reigning world champion at that weight but has not boxed for some time due to a reoccurring injury, so Ireland will have a big decision to make when it comes to selecting who goes forward for that qualifier.
Tyrone boxer Jude Gallagher achieves Olympic dream.
Tyrone native Jude Gallagher has been impressing on the boxing circuit for quite some time now and made no secret about his ambitions to represent Ireland at the next Olympics in Paris.
That dream has become a reality as Gallagher comprehensively outboxed Turkmenistan’s Sukhur Ovezov in their qualifier, to win unanimously on all of the scorecards and book his ticket to France.
The 22-year-old from Newtownstewart becomes the sixth Irish boxer to qualify for this summer’s Olympics.
