The plethora of wrong decisions on Wednesday proves amateur boxing officiating is a failure but will the changes go too far?
Chinese athletes win gold in table tennis, commentators make fun of synchronised swimming and there is controversy in the boxing officiating. The Olympic Games can surprise and delight but some things seem to stay the same year after year. London 2012 has been no different.
In just one night, the hometown super heavyweight favourite Anthony Joshua was outfoxed and handed a giftwrapped 17-16 decision over Cuba's Erislandy Savón Cotilla; the Iranian heavyweight Ali Mazaheri left the ring in disgust after being disqualified; and the Japanese bantamweight Satoshi Shimizu openly wept in the aftermath of losing 22-17 despite beating his Azerbaijani foe, Magomed Abdulhamidov, from pillar to post and scoring six knockdowns. AIBA, the sport's governing body, quickly overturned the final result but the Indian light heavyweight Sumit Sangwan was not so lucky earlier in the week; an appeal over his 14-15 loss to Brazil's Yamaguchi Falcão Florentino was denied.
Amateur boxing officiating is a failure. It reduces the toughest men in the Olympic Village to tears and consistently leaves fans scratching their heads and shouting at their TVs. Many blame the computerised scoring, which requires the five judges to press a button within a second for a punch to score but judges are notoriously stingy. Despite the official rules, they virtually never score body punching or jabs. Fighters can shelter behind a high guard, safe in the knowledge that they cannot be scored upon and it makes for very boring viewing.
The computer system was introduced in the aftermath of Roy Jones Jr's loss to South Korean Park Si-hun for the gold medal in Seoul, a fight in which the future world champion landed 86 punches to the hometown fighter's 32. A subsequent investigation found that the judges had been wined and dined by South Korean officials, though the result was not overturned.
The president of the AIBA, Dr Ching-Kuo Wu, tweaked the system for the World Championships in Azerbaijan last year, describing the new regime as "impossible to manipulate". But the real problem is that counting punches is not really a very good way to judge a fight. One boxer can land two or three bombs that have more of an effect than his opponent's 20 or 30 pitty-pats. A punch does not have to land perfectly, knuckle to face, to do damage.
Even in my own, admittedly limited, experience, blow-by-blow scoring is perplexing. In one bout, I stalked my opponent around the ring for the entire fight and strafed him along the ropes. When the non-computerised decision was announced, I had only won on two of the three judges's scorecards. The third judge must have been scoring punches I did not even feel. On the other side of the ledger, in a fight I lost, one judge scored it for me even though I ended up in hospital afterwards with a fractured cheek.
Things are changing but not in time for London 2012. Only a year after its revamp, computerised scoring is going on the scrap heap. That will not upset the outspoken US commentator Teddy Atlas who said after the rounds on Wednesday night that he would like to smash the scoring consoles with a hammer.
Wu has grand plans to get AIBA involved in the professional and much more lucrative side of the sport. That means scrapping blow-by-blow scoring and bringing the professional "10-point must" scoring system to the amateurs. Under that system, boxers are subjectively judged on who wins a round, with the winner receiving 10 points and the loser nine or less.
That is not the only modification coming to amateur boxing for Rio 2016. Professional boxers will be allowed to compete for the first time and headgear will be removed from the men's competition. It will be a big change, no doubt greeted by spectators and the boxers themselves.
But allowing the pros to compete, overhauling the scoring system and removing the headgear signal a seismic shift in the ethos of Olympic boxing. Headgear is now acknowledged not to protect the brain but it does protect the face from gruesome cuts. Amateur referees protect boxers from any punishment, while their professional counterparts only step in once a boxer has accumulated so much punishment that they cannot possibly continue. That kind of brutal, ruthless struggle can be satisfying to watch but it turns many off and does not fit with the Olympic ideal.
Unlike the other combat sports in the Olympics, boxing is a sport in which the primary objective is to hurt your opponent. Blow-by-blow scoring and headgear are a veneer of respectability on top of that basic truth. I only hope that a balance is struck for the Rio Games and that it avoids the abominable decisions from London 2012 but maintains the Olympic spirit in the ring.