Olympic Boxing

[David Robertson]

Remarkable scenes of booing and jeering greeted the end of the Olympic bantamweight fight between Japan's Satoshi Shimizu and Abdulhamidov of Azerbaijan. In the final round, Shimizu flattened Abdulhamidov no less than SIX times. Yet the referee refused to stop the fight. And at the end of the contest, although unable to stand, Adbulhamidov was declared the WINNER - the referee raising his arm largely to stop him falling down again. After the contest, a startled Shimizu had this to say:

"I don't know what to say. The first time I hit him, his eyes nearly popped out, and he fell over. Then I hit him again, and he started crawling on the floor. The ref told him to get up, but he couldn't stand properly. So I knocked him down again. I thought he'd been brain damaged. The fourth time I hit him, his head came off and bounced into the crowd. I thought the ref would definitely stop the fight then. But he didn't. So I knocked him down a fifth time, and he went down dead. But the ref pulled out an infibrillator, and the fight had to go on. Finally I hit him so hard, his entire body vanished through the stadium roof and was found a short while later in the middle of the nearby High St. But by now the fight had ended, and I was very confident of victory. I don't know what more I can do to improve"

Suggestions that the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) had been offered $10 million by the Azerbaijanis in return for two Olympic Gold medals, as reported by BBC Newsnight (Sept 2011), were dismissed as groundless by the Azeris. "Anyone who suggests otherwise will be dealt with according to our customs", said spokesman, Eyvil Krushnutz. Further suggestions that Abdulhamidov was closely related to Azerbaijan's President Kuttizedov were also rejected.

[Andrew Bak]

When I read this, I thought it was a piece of Private Eye-style satire, I couldn't believe this was actually true!

Pure bent refereeing, I glad the result got overturned on appeal!