LONDON, (Reuters) – British middleweight Anthony Ogogo caused the first big boxing shock of the Olympics yesterday, upsetting gold medal favourite Evhen Khytrov in front of a vociferous crowd that included Queen Elizabeth’s husband Prince Philip.
Ogogo, whose hopes of making it to his first Olympics were nearly ruined by a serious shoulder injury last year, became the first Briton to reach the quarter-finals after he beat the Ukrainian world amateur champion by the tightest of margins.
World number one Khytrov came back from two points down in the first round to level at 18-18 at the end of the bout and after the pair could still not be separated when the judges’ individual scores were totted up to show 52-52, they were each asked to call a winner.
After an anxious three minute wait, the longest for a decision at the Games so far, the 23-year-old Briton was deemed the winner and fell to his knees before leaping around the ring and beating his chest to the delight of a packed house.
The Ukrainian team, shocked at losing the top seed, lodged an appeal which the International Boxing Association (AIBA) said did not mention any specific motivation and was rejected.
To add to the confusion, the official draw sheet showed the scores of three judges which when added up, scored the fight 53-52 in Khytrov’s favour.
“Nobody thought I was going to win that fight apart from me, my team and my family. I don’t think even the rest of my team mates thought I was going to win it,” Ogogo, who landed some big early right hand shots before surviving two standing counts, Ogogo told reporters.
“I just believed in myself and that’s all you have to do. I want to inspire people, that’s what the Olympics is all about for me.”
The Ukrianian Olympic Committee told Reuters they were considering tkaing their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, pointing to the fact that the scorecard was carrying a score in favour of their fighter.
However a spokesman for AIBA said there was no mistake in the final score and that the system only showed selected scores and that when a bout is tied, the calculations are made based on the complete individual scores.
AIBA later released all the judges scores for each round and the countback to explain how they reached the tie, the first time, it said, that individual judges’ scores have been published in full.
Remarkably a flyweight bout between Han Soon-chul of South Korea and Hungary’s Vazgen Safaryants also finished level after all three rounds and a subsequent countback. A cornerman for Safaryants said they would complain after the Korean was awarded the win.
