AIBA To Investigate Irregularities In Olympic Boxing

Beijing, China (AHN) - The on-going Olympic boxing competition suffered a major blow after allegations of bribery and manipulation of judging panels surfaced Friday following a series of disputed boxing bouts.

During an impromptu press conference Friday, Romanian technical delegate Rudel Obreja lashed out at senior officials of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) for alleged irregularities in the boxing competitions.

Obreja, a member of the commission overseeing the computerized refereeing draw, alleged that a top official of the Association is involved in manipulating judging panels and also claims that the AIBA presidential election was compromised.

Obreja said that computerized random-selection of certain assignments of match judges and referees were changed to suit particular boxers scheduled to fight.

The unauthorized and impromptu revelation was interrupted by AIBA secretary-general Ho Kim, ending in a heated discussion between the two officials and the subsequent suspension of Obreja.

Meanwhile, AIBA head technical delegate Terry Smith held another press conference denying allegations earlier imputed against boxing officials.

Smith said that a review is being conducted regarding the scoring system, where three judges are required to press a button simultaneously to give a point to a boxer.

Aside from the incident outside the ring, a number of bouts including the semi-final fight between Felix Diaz of the Dominican Republic and France's Alexis Vastine were not spared from controversies.

Diaz went on to win the match 12-10 after being awarded a decisive two-point penalty for holding in the closing seconds of the semi-final bout.

Light flyweight boxer Paddy Barnes of Ireland, on the other hand, questions the unusual scoring favoring host China's Zou Shiming, who eventually scored 15-0.

The same case was also raised by the Algerian camp following the ouster of boxer Ouatah Newfel in the super heavyweight quarter-finals, giving China's Zhang Zhilei the advantage.

Smith said that an investigation was conducted on the controversial Olympic matches, but denied they were tainted.

Smith added that it earlier sought the intervention of an observer from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in curbing "possible attempts of manipulation."