Former Irish boxer Michael Conlan has criticised the controversial decisions that have led to two Irish fighters' losses in Paris this week, calling the sport a "shambles." Both Aoife O'Rourke and Daina Moorehouse suffered controversial defeats this week, raising questions about the fairness of the judging.
Irish middleweight Aoife O'Rourke was defeated in a surprising 3-2 split decision in her last-16 bout against Poland's Elzbieta Wojcik. The following day, Daina Moorehouse lost her 50 kg last-16 bout 4-1 to France's Wassila Lkhadiri.
After the fight, Moorehouse expressed her disbelief, stating, "I don't know; I didn’t feel when I was in there that I got beaten, but it’s different when you watch it back as well.
“I didn’t feel like when I was in there, I was losing. When you know you’re getting beaten, you’re getting beaten, but I definitely didn’t feel like I was losing.
“I knew they were going to boo me; I knew there would have been screams for her, but I just knew if I performed and took it out of the judges’ hands, I would have gotten the decision... but I still performed but didn’t take it out of the judges’ hands.
“I definitely feel like I didn’t take any big shots; even the shots I did take were just stupid jabs or like a stupid little hook over the top. But I don’t know—I definitely thought I was landing the harder shots; I was the busier boxer.”
O'Rourke's defeat earlier in the week was controversial, but many felt that Moorehouse's loss was the final straw in Paris.
Michael Conlan InstagramConlan, a former Olympian who himself endured one of the most controversial decisions in Rio against Russia's Vladimir Nikitin by split decision in 2016, admitted that the state of boxing in the Olympics is not good enough. "The Paris Olympics from a boxing standpoint have been a shambles! Incompetence at its finest," he said on Instagram with an accompanying video of himself in 2016
Conlan wasn't the only former Irish boxer to voice his opinion on Moorehouse's loss. Both Bernard Dunne and Kenny Egan also took issue with the decisions while working as pundits.
Egan described Moorehouse's defeat as "absolutely shameful" and told RTÉ: "We know the work that goes into being an Olympian; it’s so hard to get there. And for it to be taken away like that...
"Was it already ordained for the French girl to win the fight before they even stepped into the ring? That's the way it looked to me.
"Daina won that fight. We all know it; everyone in the crowd knows she won it. Zaur is going bananas in the corner.
"That’s a wrong decision; it’s taking away a medal from Daina, and it’s disgusting."
Irish boxing legend Bernard Dunne added, "It's hard to reconcile the scores they gave with what we have just watched."
