We thought it was over, or at least we were free for these Olympics, from Russian cheating. But it doesn't take an expert to watch the boxing at these Olympics and realise that something incredibly dodgy is going on.
In the ring, ropey decisions (if you'll pardon the pun) are not unusual. The way one judge sees it may be very different to the way the other two do. Take Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg's fight. Two of the judges gave the fight comfortably to Frampton but one gave it to Quigg. Fortunately though, the poor decision didn't affect the result.
However, these Olympics have seen a number of these poor calls, and poor calls that have had an effect on the result of matches. Not just a split decision where one judge makes a blatantly wrong call, but a unanimously wrong verdict, with all three judges backing a person that simply didn't win.
No one country has been victim of these dreadful mistakes (although Ireland and their big contingent have suffered badly) but there has been a clear beneficiary.
Russia.
The first absolute scandal came two days ago, Russian Evengy Tischenko was announced as unanimous decision winner over Kazakhstan's fighter Vassily Levit, who had ruthlessly dominated his victorious opponent.
It was a drubbing for the Kazakh. There was but one small period in the final round where the Russian was in the fight, let alone on top, but that won it for him. Levit had fought a gold medal winning fight and yet he had to settle for silver, a medal he treated with contempt, stuffing it in his pocket in disgust as he trudged away from the arena. The Russian was booed brutally from when the decision was made to when he left the arena too.
No-one could quite believe Levit had lost, and Tischenko had to celebrate to a chorus of boos
Booed by Brazilian fans, a Russian booed for beating a Kazakh. Now, I'm not going to act like I'm an expert in Kazakh-Brazilian relations (although it is something that I may look to study in the future if the sports journalism doesn't work out) but I have been looking for a good couple of hours around the web and from what I've seen, they are pretty non-existent. So the boos were not in sadness for the Kazakh fighter, they were at anger for the outrageous decision made in favour of the Russian, and did he deserve it?
Yes.
It was three times on that Sunday night that Russian fighters received the luck of an immensely dubious calls in these Olympics. Later the same night there was more outrage as USA's Mikaela Mayer utterly deserved to win against her own Russian opponent but was not given it. It left her coach, Billy Walsh, outraged:
"To be honest, I've just had a look at the judging. It was crazy. Are they looking at the same bloody fight or what?"
And then there was yet another, Vladmir Niktin (who we will be coming back to later). Chatchai Butdee, his Thai opponent, had as one journalist put it "Boxed [Niktin's] head off" yet the Russian had been given the fight on points.
Twitter's furious reaction to Niktin's win told the whole story
The next day, Vladmir Niktin was due to fight Ireland's Michael Conlan. I read an article on the Irish Sports Website Balls.ie the day before (similar to this one) that effectively said that Conlan was in big trouble, he was going to lose (or at least he would need to put in the greatest fight of his life to win) because he was up against the Russian.
Tweet after tweet, article after article, pundit after pundit warned that it could happen and it did. The first round, Conlan had outboxed his opponent, coming forward, but Niktin was given it. It was a decision that BBC Commentator Ronald McIntosh described as "inexplicable".
So in the second round, the Irishman changed up his tactics, a little less agressive, and was awarded with the second round victory. So somehow it would come down to a final round. But Conlan, fighting like a man possesed repeatedly landed punches on his opponent, who really struggled to get more than a couple in the last round.
In that final round, CompuBox stats show Conlan landed 31 punches to just 21 from Niktin. The Irishman threw 126 to Niktin's 87, he just had to be the victor.
Yet Niktin was given the win. And in the process guaranteed himself an Olympic medal. Now, it is true that in all the history of Olympic boxing there have been some terrible calls, and countries have done spectacularly well on their own turf. But Russia are 15,000 km from home and yet, they are getting all the decisions in their favour.
Conlan shows what he thinks of the dreadful decision
So Russia have done it, they have managed to cheat the system again. The drugs may not be helping them, so they've targeted boxing judges. It's so clear, there's no point beating around the bush. Four extraordinary decisions all going in there favour, at the expense of smaller countries whose Olympic authorities obviously cannot afford to pay off the dodgy judges.
The headline of this article is that the decisions "raise questions" but if anything, they just give us answers, or at least one big one. Russia just can't resist cheating. This surge in boxing perfectly intertwines with the return of human judgement and removal of appeals, and they've pounced at the chance.
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