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It was an eventful day at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon. The day was marred with controversies in the boxing arena, with the post-match incidents rather than the in-ring action being the highlight of the day.
Fingers were pointed at the officials, but does the problem go beyond the judges, buried deep in the scoring system itself?
It could have been a different story, maybe a story that deserved a better ending for Indian boxers. But as it stands, the country is left with one eye crying in disappointment, while the other stares at the crystal clear loopholes in the system.
Sarita Devi vs Jina Park: The bout that screamed ‘cheating’
When Sarita Devi entered the boxing area for her semifinal bout against Jina Park of South Korea, she knew she had a daunting challenge ahead of her. With home support in favour of the Korean, Devi had to bring her A-game to stand a chance of progressing to the final.
The first round was an even contest with both boxers landing punches and defending well. The 30-27 decision at the end of the round in favour of the Korean was to some extent acceptable.
But in the second round, Devi managed to silence the home crowd by throwing a series of clear punches, upper cuts and jabs. Park tried to remain in the contest but was visibly outplayed in every aspect. The Korean home crowd bore a sad face on account of the disappointing fight by the local boxer, and the Indian was unsurprisingly declared the winner, although the margin of 29-28 didn’t seem to do justice to the one-sidedness of the round.
The results in the third and fourth rounds, however, were downright shocking, and set tongues wagging all over the world. Devi was clearly the more dominant boxer in the ring in each of those rounds, but she still ended up losing them 28-29 and 27-30.
The Korean looked battered and bruised by the end of the bout. But to the surprise of the Korean faithful and to the disbelief of the Indian camp, it was she who was raising her arms at the end, with each judge delivering a final verdict of 39-37 in her favour.
Devi, despite being deemed as the clear winner by a majority of the viewers, was robbed of a victory.
The reactions sparked
The Indian camp was clearly outraged by the decision. The fact that the contest was not even closely fought, let alone one in which Park was outplaying Devi, made the decision even harder to take. Devi’s husband Thoiba Singh was so frustrated that he let fly a volley of verbal abuse at the officials. Devi herself sarcastically applauded the jury before leaving the ring.
"The bout was fixed and this was an uncivilized decision," Thoiba Singh said.
The countless hours spent in preparation go to waste when a match is decided unfairly by the jury. After all the sacrifices by the 29-year-old, she did not deserve to exit the Asian Games in such baffling fashion. “All the training means nothing when such things happen. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry. We sacrifice so much, even time with our kids,” Devi said.
Mary Kom, who managed to win her semifinal match, showed her support for the crestfallen boxer. “She lost because her opponent was a Korean. It's very sad,” Mary Kom said.
The Indian officials lodged a formal protest with the AIBA’s technical committee, but the appeal was rejected.
Former Indian hockey captain Viren Rasquinha took to Twitter to condemn the decision by the officials.
Some Indian fans also shared their disbelief at the result.
More controversial results on the same day
Within hours of the controversy, another Indian boxer seemed to have become the victim of a biased jury, when Devendro Singh was knocked out in the quarterfinals of the men's light flyweight (46-49kg) event. Singh clearly looked to have dominated his bout against Shin Jonghun of South Korea, but once again the Korean was deemed to be the winner by all the three judges.
Although the contest was not as one-sided as Sarita Devi’s, the decision was received with boos throughout the stadium. It was evident that the Indian was the better boxer in the ring, but somehow victory once again eluded the Indian camp.
To make matters worse, there was a third controversial incident on the same day. In the men’s bantam weight quarterfinal, Mongolian boxer Tugstsogt Nyambayar looked to have convingly beaten his South Korean opponent Sangmyeong Ham. But once again, the Korean was awarded a miraculous 3-0 victory.
The three incidents in the day have left a dark mark on South Korean boxing as well as the 2014 Asian Games.
Boxing controversies in the past
The scoring system in boxing has been frequently changed to avoid controversies of this nature, but dubious results continue to haunt the sport. Back during the 1988 Olympics, perhaps the most shocking decision in boxing’s history rocked the sporting world.
South Korean boxer Park Si-Hun was awarded a 3-2 victory over American Roy Jones, despite the fact that Jones had absolutely thrashed Park for three rounds. Jones had landed 86 punches in total, compared to Park’s 32.
The judges were later found guilty of being bribed by South Korean officials, but the decision was not overturned.
That match led to the introduction of computerized scoring in amateur boxing, but even that has been scrapped now, with a return to the traditional judgment based verdicts.
Subjective scoring method
The Asian Games judging system is slightly different, and less transparent, than that used in the 2012 Olympics. In London, there were five ring-side judges, and from these five judges, only the three scores that are closest to each other were taken into account. Then the average of the score was counted as the final score of the athlete for that round.
For example, if a boxer got the scores 2,4,4,4,2, then only the three four’s were counted. The average, which is also four, was deemed to be the score of the round for the boxer. This system seemed more conducive in eliminating bias amongst the judges.
In the Asian Games however, there are only three judges present. As a result, no score is eliminated, which increases the probability of bias.
Moreover, there is plenty of subjectivity with regard to how the judges record the events of the bout. They electronically press a button when a punch is landed, but they can conveniently choose to refrain from pressing the button whenever they feel like it. At the end of the round, the total counts on the electronic machine are used to calculate the score.
As anyone can deduce from this, the scoring system doesn’t allow the judges to quantify the effectiveness of the punches thrown. A boxer can throw five meek punches and receive a crushing blow from the opponent, and still be comfortably ahead in the scoring system.
Clear flaws in the system
In addition to the fact that the result of a bout depends so heavily on the subjective perception of the judges, what makes it more difficult for the boxers is that the scores are not visible to them during a round, which leaves them in the dark about where they stand. The winner of each round is declared, yes, but as the AIBA rule book states, the final winner is decided on the basis of the total points accorded to him or her by a majority of the judges, rather than the number of rounds he or she won.
If instead they are made aware of the scores at each point, boxers would be able to adjust their strategy accordingly.
Vikas Krishan feels the scoring system is the biggest problem the boxers face right now. "I feel good, but boxing has gone into regression. We are not able to get the scores so we are not able to change our game because we don`t know if we are up or down," Krishnan said.
Although he won gold at the last Asian Games, he feels the new system makes it difficult to replicate that performance.
"Yes I won there but four years ago scoring was different. It`s much more difficult now, because when we were down on the scores we were able to make a strategy about how to recover it. But now we don`t know. It`s the biggest problem we have,” he added.
The flawed scoring system in boxing is perhaps the biggest reason why controversial decisions in the sport remain unchallenged. It leaves a lot of room for subjectivity and sometimes, like in the case of this year’s Asian Games, leads to results that do not justify the fight.
India were robbed of a medal today, maybe even two medals, but there’s no way to correct that injustice. Where do the hearbroken fighters go from here?
