The much-feted MC Mary Kom’s sublime advancement into the Final of 51 kg boxing here on Tuesday was marred by an outrageous “sellout” by the judges of the bout between l Sarita Devi and South Korea’s Jina Park. Despite Sarita dominating the entire match with clean punches, Jina Park was declared victorious.
Similar fate awaited l Devendro Singh in the Men’s light flyweight category who was adjudged loser despite being on top of the game against South Korea’s Jong Hun Shin. The two controvesial decisions robbed India of two sureshot Gold medal chances.
Sarita broke down after the match and pleaded with journalists “to do something to end this injustice,” even India’s long-time Cuban coach BI Fernandes said South Korea was notorious to engineer such sellouts. He cited the example of 1988 Seoul Olympics where the same thing happened quite blatantly. India did lodge a $500 protest seeking a review of Sarita’s verdict, but their plea was late in coming and was turned down by the authorities.
An inconsolable Sarita’s husband was so furious that he abused the officials, yelling that “such injustice is killing boxing.” He was removed from the arena by security officials.
