NO SURPRISE there.
I refer to the ousting of the International Boxing Federation (Aiba) from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The Aiba has been like a time bomb for the longest time.
With its expulsion, boxing in Tokyo will now be handled directly by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
In its decision to kick Aiba out of Tokyo, the IOC cited as reason “the very serious reputational, legal and financial risks” for the IOC and its stakeholders.
Said Nenad Lalovic of the Olympic inquiry panel: “Not just the American ones.”
Central to the IOC decision is the election of Gafur Rakhimov of Uzbekistan in 2017 as Aiba president, who is under United States federal sanctions for suspected links to eastern European organized crime.
In December 2017, wrote Graham Dunbar of The Associated Press, the US Treasury Department noted “Rakhimov has been described as having moved from extortion and car theft to becoming one of Uzbekistan’s leading criminals and an important person involved in the heroin trade.”
Even as Rakhimov has denied the wrongdoing, the IOC investigated last year boxing’s governance, debts and integrity of Olympic bouts. The Aiba is in debt of $17 million.
Lalovic had emphasized boxers’ lack of faith in Aiba at each Olympics from 2008 to 2016.
And IOC President Thomas Bach said: “We are all concerned with the refereeing.”
If truth be told, flawed officiating in Olympic boxing has been going on for decades. We had fallen victim to it—from Anthony Villanueva getting robbed of the gold in the 1964 Olympics in, yes, Tokyo, to Onyok Velasco losing the gold in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
I was an eyewitness to a failed bid of Olympic bout-fixing when, after our boxer lost a clearly-won fight in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the late and very dignified Mel Lopez sidled up to me at ringside and said: “Before this fight, they had asked for money to make our boy win.”
How did the former Manila mayor handle the situation?
“Of course, I rejected it,” he said. “Better to lose with honor than to win by cheating.”
May Mel’s tribe increase.