No
evidence of fixing in Olympic bouts, says AIBA
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[January 27, 2017]
By Alan Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) - "Unprofessional
relationships" within AIBA created an atmosphere of collusion
between senior management and judges that undermined boxing at last
year's Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the governing body said in a
statement on Friday.
It added, however, that an investigation committee had found no
evidence of active interference in the results after carrying out 50
interviews over a four-month period.
"An unwelcome axis of influence and sole decision-making had been
created and used by former Senior Management that led to a lack of
due process being carried out," AIBA president Ching-kuo Wu said.
"Whilst there is no evidence that this had a direct influence on
results in Rio, if best practice is not followed 100 percent of the
time by our officials and R&Js (referees and judges), that is
unacceptable."
AIBA said the 36 Rio referees and judges, who were sidelined pending
the investigation, would now be reintegrated on a case-by-case
basis.
The tournament in August was embroiled in controversy surrounding a
new '10-point must' scoring system, with allegations by some boxers
that they had been robbed of victory.
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Ireland's world bantamweight champion Michael Conlan called AIBA
"cheats" after he lost on points to Russia's Vladimir Nikitin in a
quarter-final.
AIBA also dropped a number of judges and referees during the
competition, after finding that "less than a handful" of the
decisions from 239 bouts reviewed were not at the level expected.
The organization's French executive director Karim Bouzidi was also
reassigned to a new role.
Friday's statement spoke of a "lack of proper procedural norms" due
to "a concentration of decision-making power and the assigning of
roles assumed by former senior management that had a detrimental
impact on in-competition best practice."
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AIBA President Wu Ching-Kuo attends a news conference in Baku
September 24, 2011. REUTERS/Osman Karimov
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It said the actions taken by AIBA post-Rio had been justified.
An automated Swiss Timing system will now assign officials to
matches, with all five judges' scorecards used to determine the
winner of a bout instead of just three chosen at random by a
computer.
"There is no evidence that the reallocation of medal rankings is
required for Rio 2016, but AIBA will be researching the feasibility
of processes for the appeal of decisions in the future," it said in
the statement.
A broad education program involving boxers, coaches, officials and
fans will be set up "to instil a greater understanding of scoring
and give a strong reminder of the importance of sportsmanship,
respect and fair play values.
"The subjectivity of scoring is part of what makes the sport unique,
and the nature of the contest means that strong opinions are formed
by teams and fans, but that should not impact negatively on the
integrity of the officials," AIBA said.
(Editing by Ossian Shine and Ed Osmond)
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