Updated at 20.30
JOE WARD’S OLYMPIC dream came to a controversial end at the final men’s boxing qualifier in Trabzon this afternoon.
Ward, the reigning European light-heavyweight champion and tipped as one of Ireland’s top medal prospects in the ring, lost 18-15 against Bahran Muzaffer of Turkey in the last 16.
The Irish camp later lodged an appeal against the result, which they felt was unfairly scored, but it was rejected.
Fighting out of the blue corner in front of a partisan home crowd, Ward fell behind early on and trailed by a single point at the end of the first three-minute round. Muzaffer managed to maintain that margin in the second round and led 12-11 heading into the last before closing out his win.
It was a redemptive win for the Turkish fighter, who saw his own Olympic dreams dashed by Kenneth Egan at the Beijing games in 2008.
Speaking to Paul McDermott of the Irish Sports Council afterwards, Ireland’s head coach Billy Walsh said that he had his doubts about the manner in which the final round — won 6-4 by Muzaffer — was scored.
“In the last round, I thought Joe did all the cleaner scoring,” Walsh said. “That’s what you’re up against.
You’re here and there’s a partisan crowd. Even if Joe’s hitting, sometimes they’re pressing the wrong button.
It’s very unfortunate but he’s had two chances to qualify and he hasn’t done it. He’s probably one of the best boxers in the world in the weight division.
“Round three, the Turk kept spoiling for the three minutes, ” team manager Des Donnelly told RTÉ Sport at 7.
“He maybe threw two or three shots, one of them hit the target. The problem is where did the six points come from?
We’ve lodged an objection and we hope that they’ll look at the video of the fight and come back to us, but to be quite honest, I’m not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, speaking on Newstalk’s Off the Ball, McDermott said in relation to the fight:
“There was nothing too controversial about it – I felt that Joe had won the fight reasonably comfortably.
You try not to be too biased and too partisan, but all of the international journalists agreed with us.
He added that Ward was hugely disappointed with the outcome: “He was carrying a lot of expectation – London 2012 will be much poorer without him.”
There was disappointment too for Clonmel’s Con Sheehan who lost 17-12 to another Turkish opponent, Muhammet Erkan Aci, in the super-heavyweight division.
Light-welterweight Ross Hickey was beaten by Dmitri Galagot of Moldova. Hickey was up against it from the start and playing catch-up in the final round, he took a standing count before ultimately losing out on a scoreline of 24-11.
Earlier, welterweight Adam Nolan marched into the quarter-finals with a 14-9 points decision over Poland’s Tomasz Kot, as did Belfast heavyweight Tommy McCarthy who comfortably beat Colpa Alem of Bosnia 12-3.
Additional reporting by Adrian Russell and Paul Fennessy.
That is a huge shame. I think anyone with an interest in Irish boxing would have thought he was one of our hopes for an Olympic medal.
Unfortunately if there is a hint of corruption it’s nothing new in boxing. It can have predetermined outcomes as bad as wwe sometimes.
Agreed, he demolished Kenny Egan a few months ago and we had high hopes for him, he still very young though and the lad will come good .
There was always a danger of this.
We saw what happened in Beijing with K Egan against the Chinese opponent. If the UEFA boys are taking backhanders the boxing boys are certainly taking them. Fighting a Turkish fighter in Turkey was always going to be a massive ask as a result. It’s a real pity but he’s young enough to come back for the next Olympics.
Boxing is becoming a farce though with the blatant fixing of fights.
Corruption is so widespread in Turkish sport it even has it’s own Wikipedia entry http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Turkish_sports_corruption_scandal#section_1 And there are few “sports” as corrupt as boxing, there have been numerous examples in the past year alone. So whoever thought it a good idea to hold a boxing tournament in Turkey must’ve been a little on the slow side.
Im betting the judges were Turks as well knowing the ebu
The referee was from Kazakhstan, and the ringside judges from the Philippines, China, Italy, Algeria and Croatia.
Gutted…! Chin up Ward, long career ahead of you yet!
He’s used to hearing chin down :)
Boxing scoring is becoming like Eurovision voting.
And I made a spelling mistake great :O Your’s* don’t I look silly :L
Katie Taylor has one final chance to qualify for the Olympics but its in china probably against a Chinese girl so don’t rule out two of our best medal chances not even being at the games.
Cheers Niall :) and the mighty Joe will be back he’ll put every man he meets on the canvas from now on! That’ll leave no doubt about it!
Off the boxing topic, but it is incredibly annoying when you put some quotes in blue boxes and others not. Make up your mind! Plus if you use quotation marks they go at the beginning and end of a quote. You’re sincerely a stressed out leaving cert English student who struggles to correct all his own grammar etc. as well as the Journal’s! :) rant over.
Thanks Rob, nice to get some feedback on the quote boxes. Didn’t realise they were so off-putting.
As for the quotation marks — if the quote in question continues on over a few paragraphs, it’s accepted style not to use the close marks at the end of every paragraph, just at the end of the entire quote. Although I wouldn’t start doing that for the Leaving Cert, it’ll probably just stress you out even more!
Good luck with the exams.
Yeah@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get a life
Any word on how the protest went?
Gutted for Ward, such a talent.