Torn again

The questionable scoring of the Olympic boxing is back in the news as

"Boxing officials were battling to contain major scandal as serious claims of bribery and the manipulation of Olympic judging panels emerged after a series of disputed bouts.

The International Boxing Association (AIBA) suspended Romanian technical delegate Rudel Obreja after he held an impromptu and rowdy press conference and made lurid allegations against senior officials.

AIBA also revealed that it had been tracking "possible attempts of manipulation" for more than two months and had brought in an International Olympic Committee (IOC) observer "when the situation became more serious".

At a testy media conference late on Friday, AIBA technical delegate Terry Smith was grilled by journalists who questioned a series of Olympic results.

Smith insisted none of the fights was fixed although he said the scoring system, where three out of five judges need to press a button simultaneously for a point to be awarded, was under review."

One of the examples given is that of the bout between Pady Barnes and the Chinese boxer, Zou Shiming. Zou Shiming won that bout 15-0 and Paddy Barnes was most upset. I might have more sympathy for Paddy Barnes had he not chosen to compete for a foreign country rather than the country of his birth.