Others also complained of bad officiating at Olympic boxing matches and boxing officials seemed to agree as they disciplined three officials and reversed a decision that had a Japanese fighter losing to an Azerbaijani—but they didn’t support Mazaheri.
Mazaheri cried foul in the heavyweight competition when he was disqualified after being warned three times by referee Frank Scharmach of Germany for persistent holding against Cuban Jose Larduet Gomez. Mazaheri noted that he was leading by two points going into the second round where he was disqualified.
“It was a fix,” Mazaheri said. “I could have gotten a bronze easily if it hadn’t been for that. In my previous fights [before the Olympics], I had done really well. It was a set-up,” he told reporters after the disqualification.
The International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA), however, said the three warnings were the key. “According to Rule 12.2.1 of the AIBA Technical & Competition Rules, ‘only three warnings may be given to the same boxer in one contest. The third warning brings automatic disqualification’.”
The next day, however, AIBA suspended referee Scharmach for five days. That did no good for Mazaheri because the Iranian team had failed to file an official appeal right after the match and it was too late to appeal the next day when Scharmach was suspended.
Mazaheri was warned three times in the first 1-1/2 rounds about holding Larduet, including an egregious instance in which he appeared to pull Larduet toward him while falling backward. But referee Scharmach’s decision to disqualify Mazaheri in the second round seemed awfully quick to the mostly British crowd, which responded with jeers and chants of “Ali! Ali!”
Mazaheri stood with his arms outstretched like a winner after the disqualification while boos rained down on the referee. Mazaheri climbed through the ropes without waiting for the official decision, refusing to interact with Scharmach.
The Cuban winner said of Mazaheri, “He was a weird boxer. Tall, and a little dirty. He didn’t want to shake my hand, but I don’t care. I’m going to the quarterfinals.”
In a second case, Japanese bantamweight Satoshi Shimizu was trailing by seven points going into the third and final round against Azerbaijani Mahomed Abdul-Hamidov.
The Japanese boxer decked the Azerbaijani six times in that final round, but referee Ishanguly Meretnyyazov of Turkmenistan did not stop the fight and the victory was given to the Azerbaijani. Japan complained that the referee also tried to help the boxer by fixing his headgear and delaying the resumption of the fight.
Unlike Iran, Japan filed a formal appeal immediately. AIBA ruled that the referee should have given the Azer-baijani at last three standing counts, which would have stopped the match and given victory to the Japanese. AIBA then reversed the outcome and gave Shimizu the victory. AIBA also expelled the referee from the Olympics as well as an Azerbaijani technical official.
AIBA President Wu Ching-kuo said, “I deeply regret that we had to take these decisions. However, our main concern has been and will always be the protection of the integrity and fair-play of our competitions.”
Former boxer Lennox Lewis who won a gold medal in 1988 for Canada told reporters he was impressed by the boxing talent at the Olympics but worried about the judging. “You never know who is going to win until the end of the fight,” he said.
Boxing has 10 weight categories. Iran qualified boxers at four of those for the Olympics. Here is how they have come out:
• Mazaheri, at heavyweight (91 kilos), was disqualified in his first match.
• Amin Ghasemi-pur at welterweight (69 kilos) lost his first match 13-8 to a Venezuelan and was eliminated.
• Mehdi Toloutibandpi at light welterweight (64 kilos) won his first match, defeating a Spaniard 16-12, but was then defeated in his second match by a boxer from Kazakhstan 19-10
• Ehsan Ruzbahani at light heavyweight (81 kilos) defeated a Columbian 12-11 and then a Turk 18-12 and made the quarterfinals where he was slated to face a Kazakh Wednesday after the Iran Times went to press.