By Nick Bellafatto
To the viewers who bothered to pay attention to the spectacle of Olympic boxing held in London most recently, that is if they could find a televised bout, from the outside looking in the performance of the U.S. men’s boxing team was a complete let down prompted by the athlete’s themselves, in that for the first time in the history of the sport the United States men would not medal in this event. This is in spite of the usually suspect scoring on the part more than a few AIBA appointed officials at an event wherein which supposedly credible sources identified that an under the table payment of $10 million to that governing organization [AIBA] would yield Olympic Gold to the country willing to shell out the asking price.
And whether from one’s point of view our athletes poor showing in yet another Olympic Games was perhaps due to possessing technical flaws in certain areas, or whether a lack of aggression or failure to put punches together would cause competitors to come up short, or that being either over-worked or under-conditioned to sustain enough of an effective scoring attack would be the proximate cause to successfully prevent our boxer’s from moving beyond even the quarter-finals, much less the round of 32 or 16, looking from the inside out, the fact is that these kids may have been doomed from the start.
The real let down from my perspective, and that of many of the rank and file membership at USA Boxing to include local level coaches, officials, physicians, and various other dedicated volunteers from across the country, was not the boxers themselves, but rather the arbitrary decision making by the hierarchy of the seemingly less than democratic functioning USA Boxing leadership, who for the first time in the history of the organization would implement what was deemed a re-load tournament. This was a tournament that essentially opened the doors to all eligible USA Boxing membership to fill so-called open, or remaining spots on the U.S. Team literally a few months before the Olympics itself. Not only was this unprecedented, but it was a recipe for disaster.
From the inception of USA Boxing in 1888, once known as the United States Amateur Boxing Federation, an annual tournament, or what is referred to as the U.S. Nationals [ formerly the AAU or Amateur Athletic Union Boxing Championships] would take place, usually held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the culmination of athlete’s from across the United States arduously competing in advancing competitions locally and regionally to finally reach the national level.
It’s at this juncture that the country’s best would face off to determine team members for the year in question. This would include representatives for the various weight categories, who, after making the cut, would prepare year round for participation in the Olympics in an Olympic year, or the Pan American Games and/or World Championships in other years. To qualify for the Olympics itself, one would have to win or place high enough at the Amateur World Championships in the previous year, or get to the big dance by way of a second qualifier held shortly before the start of the Olympics.
Suffice it to say, other than three boxers who qualified for the 2012 Olympics by placing accordingly at the 2011 World Championships held in Azerbaijan [Errol Spence, Joseph Diaz Jr., and Rau’shee Warren], the remaining boxers on the team were supposedly to have another opportunity to qualify for the London Games by placing sufficiently at the aforementioned second qualifier which took place in Brazil this past May. But instead of sending existing team members who should have been training year round under a solid set of coaches who for that same amount of time would work with these particular individuals as regards shoring up on technical shortcomings while preparing them tactically and strategically for competition at the international level, the flood gates were opened once more to the entire eligible athletic membership to qualify for the qualifier.
In essence a second national tournament would take place so that U.S. boxers would yet again face U.S. boxers for the 6 or 7 unqualified spots, allowing for the possible assemblage of close to an entirely new team literally just a few months before the all important Olympics. In fact, and as a result, I believe 3 or 4 new members were added while those who had through blood, sweat, and tears previously won a spot on the team were sent home. Not only was this a disservice to those kids who trained hard to make the team the first time around, but the process of running what amounted to a second national tournament was counterproductive, to be sure a physically and mentally draining process that didn’t allow competitors in London, some of whom shouldn’t have went in the first place, to put their best efforts forward.
Our boxers should have been prepared by way of working as a cohesive unit close to a year in advance by competing at dual meets and other international competitions against foreign nationals which would have prepared them for the next level. Competing against other U.S. boxers so close to actual Olympic competition only seems to make sense to the thinkers at USA Boxing headquarters. To make matters worse, the U.S. Team’s coaching staff was astonishingly all but replaced approximately less than two months before the start of the games. I’m sure that this move boosted our athletes morale who were sure not to notice the changes.
In short, you would think that the outcome of this years debacle would be a lesson learned. After all, we teach our boxer’s everyday to learn from prior mistakes so as not to make them in the future. But with USA Boxing’s leadership, to include executive director Anthony Bartkowski, as well as recently appointed President Dr. Charles Butler and others, they seem all too eager to move forward without a thorough examination of what went wrong in this instance, a matter to which I will return. It’s this type of thinking that plain and simple has further widened an existing rift between those who run USA Boxing and the rank and file members, who, at the grassroots level really produce the athlete’s that represent our country.
On the one hand we have local level coaches who customarily hand over boxer’s they’ve trained from as early as perhaps eight years old or before, to a supposedly elite level coaching staff in Colorado Springs when these particular appointee’s for the past few Olympics have garnered less than exemplary results to be polite. With that said, it brings the entire staff selection process into question to say the least.
What’s more, is that after recent talk that an athlete’s initial coach would supposedly be able to communicate with the national appointed staff, as opposed to previous years, where input would be offered on the tendencies, strengths, and/or weaknesses of a particular boxer so as to help to develop them in the best way possible and perhaps build upon those strengths and shore up the weaknesses, those local level coaches were once again shut out of the process. A tragedy to be sure, especially in light of the fact that as mentioned some boxers had just recently made the team while a new head coach and other staff were brought on board last minute.
To give yet another example of the seeming ineptitude exemplified by the top down run USA Boxing Inc., they would once again send coach Basheer Abdullah, not only a man who in one capacity or another hasn’t really got the job done in serving the U.S. Team in 2000, 2004, and 2008, but a man who was sent as a last minute replacement to run the show in London even though Abdullah has since worked with professional boxers, thus making him ineligible to work the corner. In essence he got a free trip across the Pond. Moreover, Abdullah’ comments that it wouldn’t make any difference whether a certain boxer had his local level or initial coach in the corner seems a bit harsh, especially given the fact that there’s only one way to go when you’ve hit rock bottom.
In summary, my outlook for any future success is even more dismal. Instead of USA Boxing leadership, with it’s own sordid past, comprehending any blunders or doing a thorough review on how it may have failed our most recent representatives, they seemed to have already put the matter behind them and are looking to the future where it appears that the headgear will once again come off, and the subjective 10-point must system will be re-instituted.
I just don’t know how that will matter in the hands of AIBA, under whom USA Boxing is subject in more ways than one, considering that AIBA at the top appears routinely incompetent at best, and corrupt at worst. If this world body can’t acknowledge its morally depraved past, and/or make up for its past transgressions by rightfully awarding Roy Jones Jr. a gold medal, his bout with Korean Park Si-Hun being what ushered in computer scoring in the first place, how can one expect to righteously move forward.
And this is only one of a number of heinous examples with London being no exception as amongst other blatant travesties during the recent Games, at least two gold medals were awarded to boxers who were clearly defeated in earlier bouts. Super heavyweight gold medalist Anthony Joshua of Great Britain would get schooled in the round of 16 by Cuban boxer Erislandy Savon Cotilla, as even personally acknowledged to me by fellow British counterparts closely associated with Joshua, while Ukranian Oleksandr Gvozdyk was robbed of a decision in the semifinals that allowed Kazakhstan’ Adilbek Nyazmbetov to move on and capture light heavyweight gold.
In moving on, with USA Boxing planners routinely shooting down advice from notable trainers like Emmanuel Steward [named 2002 national director of coaching at USA Boxing], Lou Duva, Freddie Roach, and Mark Breland in particular, who they didn’t even want in their training camp some time ago much less recognize despite there being a statue of Mark on the Olympic training grounds itself, the light of hope would seem to be but a fading flicker. Unless there is some unity demonstrated by the rank and file who should no less mount some sort of coup, although hard to fathom, USA Boxing could further decline at the national and international levels. And therein lies another disheartening outlook in that the rank and file itself isn’t all that unified. Just like our nation in general, perhaps the only thing that can save USA Boxing from its arbitrary machinations are the people at the bottom, provided the bottom dwellers can get their own stuff together.
If only the men did as well as the women I would quite possibly have little or nothing to say. With coincidentally no re-load tournament whatsoever to speak of, the women would garner medals in two out of three cases [Claressa Shields-Gold, Marlene Esparza-Bronze, Queen Underwood-notable mention], a ratio that harkens back to the former glory days of the U.S. men’s teams in what one can only currently look at as a bygone era. Can you imagine if the women were afforded as many weight categories as the men? I believe the medal count would have risen even further. And with female athletes discriminated against by way of being afforded less than the entire gamut of participatory weight classifications, in the end this can only be looked at as another shortcoming on the part of AIBA and all that it currently stands for.
