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The numbers don't lie! Stats back up claim that Michael Conlan was robbed

Conlan threw and connected more punches in disputed third round against the Russian.

– Niall Kelly reports from Rio de Janeiro

FIGHT STATS FROM Tuesday’s controversial Olympic boxing quarter-final backed up the Irish camp’s insistence that Michael Conlan was robbed against Vladimir Nikitin.

Conlan, the bantamweight world number one, looked to have comfortably outboxed the Russian eighth seed to secure his second Olympic medal.

But when the judges’ scorecards were revealed, they called it as a unanimous decision for Nikitin and sparked outrage in international boxing circles.

Stats service Compubox released its fight data on Tuesday evening, showing that while the Russian nicked a tight first round, Conlan comfortably landed more — and more telling — shots in the second and the third.

All three judges scored the final round in favour of Nikitin but Conlan threw more punches (126 to 87), landed more punches (31 to 21), and connected with more power punches (29 to 20).

“Nikitin swept the first with his aggression while Conlan swept the second with his activity and accuracy,” Compubox stated.

“The core of the dispute rested in the third which the judges from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Poland gave to Nikitin despite Conlan prevailing…”

Perhaps it was was Nikitin’s ability to draw Conlan into his preferred brawling style that may have tipped the scale but numerically speaking the Irishman should have prevailed.

Interestingly, by the same metric, Compubox’s statistics indicated that Mira Potkonen did just enough to take her split decision win against Katie Taylor in Monday’s lightweight quarter-final.

The Finn outworked the defending champion, throwing 225 punches to 154, and connected with marginally more over the course of the four rounds — 43 to 39.

The two connected with the same amount of power punches, 36, though Taylor had a marginally higher success rate.

“The 35-year-old Finn connected consistently with right hands, was the busier fighter and effective aggressor against the retreating Taylor, who scored well in round three but couldn’t gain a visible edge the rest of the time.”

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Niall Kelly
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