Limpag: Weird world of Olympic boxing
-A A +AWednesday, August 8, 2012
WHEN I learned that Philippine officials filed a protest against Mark Barriga’s loss, I thought we had a pretty good chance of getting the appeal.
But, as it turned out, officials didn’t even bother to review Barriga’s loss, leaving our officials to rue the injustice.
One Philippine official who wasn’t named was quoted in a national daily blasting the decision, and then he also said that some countries are known to “buy judges” but the Philippines wouldn’t do that.
Of course, not only won’t we do that, we probably can’t afford it.
By the way, this year’s Olympic boxing offers another insight as to how “weird” this sport is, and a story that received scant attention here a year ago may provide, say, a certain enlightenment.
BBC ran a story last year of how Azerbaijan was accused of paying millions of dollars to be assured of a gold medal in the Olympics and officials, of course, denied the story.
And in the Olympics? One of the most controversial fights in London was between Japan’s Satoshi Shimizu and Magomed Abdulhamidov. It was so one-sided that Shimizu had Abdulhamidov buckling four times in the final four minutes but the referee didn’t call any knockdown, and even stopped the fight to help the Azerbaijan boxer fix his headgear.
Japan lost but a travesty like that couldn’t go on so after a review, the Japanese fighter was awarded a victory and the referee was sent home.
The Olympics is supposed to be a sport’s highest level of competition, and if they can do these things brazenly, well.
IRONMAN. Mayor Mike Rama isn’t much of a sports pages kind of guy. The other day, he said, he wanted organizers to inform LGUS at least six months before the hosting of major events like Ironman so Cebu City can do its share, like paving roads and stuff.
The thing is, we’ve been writing about the Ironman since Sun.Star Cebu broke the story of Cebu’s hosting in November last year. That’s almost 10 months ago. And besides, judging from how the road beside our office was done, Cebu City doesn’t need a six-month notice to apply a coat of asphalt. (I hope the asphalt lasts longer than six months).
The Ironman was Cebu’s biggest sports event, bigger even than the Southeast Asian Games in 2005 (quick, do you remember what sports events we hosted?).
It’s great, too, that Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue, Cebu and Talisay and Cebu Province showed they can work together to make it a success.
Here’s to next year’s Ironman.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on August 09, 2012.
Sports
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