Nikitin won a controversial matchup against Ireland’s Michael Conlan in a Tuesday quarterfinal, but suffered multiple face cuts during the match.
Advertisement
Nikitin still received the decision in a hard-fought bout, prompting an outraged Conlan to denounce the global boxing association and Russian Federation as conspirators in corruption.
During a bitter internal battle the Aiba president and International Olympic Committee member, Dr CK Wu, fired the previous executive director, Ho Kim, a year ago and replaced him with Bouzidi, his then deputy.
Bouzidi, who holds dual French and Algerian nationality, is also chief executive of World Series Boxing.
Amateur boxing’s governing body has “reassigned” its most senior executive, who has operational control for the Olympic tournament, with immediate effect in the wake of corruption claims and concerns over judging decisions. “It is of paramount importance to protect our sport and its R&J community whose integrity has been put into question”. AIBA moved from punch-counting points system to a professional 10-point scoring system for this Olympics, and most bouts had gone off without complaint until two conspicuous results favored Russian fighters early this week.
The incident followed another controversial decision on Monday where Russian heavyweight Evgeny Tishchenko was awarded victory in his final against Vassiliy Levit of Kazakhstan. For an Olympic gold medal, it’s going to be a great fight.
Conlan also clarified his dad’s comments when John was quoted as saying that Ireland had “embarrassed” the AIBA and spoke in detail about why he felt the referee, Kheira Sidi Yakoub, was doing all in her power to aid Nikitin during their quarter final bout.
Mexico’s Misael Rodriguez and Azerbaijan’s Kamran Shakhsuvarly get the bronze medals.
Russian boxer Vladimir Nikitin got a controversial win by decision over world champion Michael Conlan to advance to the bantamweight semifinal, but won’t face USA prospect Shakur Stevenson after all.
Several other fighters have complained vociferously about their losses in the last few days of the Olympics, as they invariably do in every global amateur boxing tournament.
A spokesman for the federation that governs the boxing tournament said Wednesday that the names of the referees and judges who were dismissed, and the matches that were tainted, would not be released because he did not want to “besmirch their families”.
A spotlight was shone on the judging of boxing bouts at the Games after a number of contentious decisions were delivered in the past week.
Advertisement
“To me, it’s back to what we were in 1988, when I fought in the Olympic Games and Roy Jones got robbed in the final”, U.S coach Billy Walsh said.
