Sumit Sangwan’s (81kg), Vikas Krishan (69kg) and now Manoj Kumar (64kg). Indian woes seemed to see no end at the London Olympics boxing arena. On Saturday, soon after Manoj lost his pre-quarter final bout to Thomas Stalker of Great Britain 16-20, he cried foul. “I was clear winner, but the judges didn’t give me points and eventually I lost the bout.

It seems that everything is already fixed,” said a dejected Manoj. 

“I told the local press here that this is not an Olympics, it is just a district-level tournament. Nobody expects such blatant cheating at this level of competition,” he said.

The new system
The British boxer was ahead in the first two rounds scoring 4-7 and 5-9. But the third round went 7-4 in Manoj’s favour.

In the new scoring system the scores of each boxer is the average of three of the five judges’s combination which is the closest.

This means that a scoring punch may or may not eventually fetch a point. No doubt Manoj felt wronged.

“In the first round I threw more scoring punches and scored five points with my left punch only, but they only gave me four points in the round. I would have at least won the bout with a margin of 3 to 4 points,” said Manoj.

Earlier losses
Earlier an appeal by the Indian boxing contingent to review Sangwan’s bout was not entertained and Krishan, despite declared winner in the ring, saw the decision overturned following an appeal by the opponents.