Paris – An inner research via amateur boxing’s world body AIBA has raised severe questions about judging the 2016 Rio Olympics, with precise suspicion falling on a French reliable, French newspaper Le Monde mentioned on Monday. France basked within the glow of six boxing medals in Rio, including golds for terrific heavyweight Tony Yoka and his now-wife Estelle Mossley. But three days earlier than the end of the Olympic tournament, boxing federation AIBA eliminated its then-executive director Karim Bouzidi from his position because he turned into accused of favoring warring parties from certain international locations, according to Le Monde’s document.
Le Monde, which executed the investigation with Bulgarian newspaper Bulgaria Today, said it had seen the internal AIBA document and emails that showed the frame became worried Bouzidi had inspired the decisions of so-known as five-megastar judges in Olympic bouts. An e-mail from AIBA’s then-president Wu Ching-Ko dated November 18, 2016, said the body suspected Bouzidi of acting with every other senior respectable to influence the judges, particularly those featuring boxers from France and Uzbekistan.
Bouzidi did no longer reply to AFP’s request for touch upon Monday. Andre Martin, the top of the French boxing federation, advised Le Monde: “The outcomes in Rio have been not ‘stolen’; they may be sincere. It’s genuine that we knew Bouzidi, but we in no way blackmailed him.” funBouzidi’s arrival in the senior AIBA ranks coincided with a marketing campaign using France to try and improve its Olympic boxing effects after disappointing performances at the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Games. AIBA’s inner investigation found that Bouzidi had the power to appoint the referees and officers for competitions. Still, there was no direct evidence that these changes motivated the effects of fights.
One a part of the method concerned setting up a franchise to participate in World Series Boxing, an international competition aimed at swelling AIBA’s coffers. Kevin Rabaud, the previous instruct of the French crew within the WSB collection, stated they had carried out not done anything wrong. “We usually played by way of the rules… We organized occasions in France so that the athletes may want to become higher known. If the fight becomes close, it might play inside the boxer’s favor if they had been better acknowledged. “In Rio, we have given effects thanks to our popularity and our preceding consequences.”
Boxing is already facing the threat of expulsion from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Its inclusion depends on the outcome of research into AIBA with the aid of the International Olympic Committee, which has offered the frame with a list of forty-one questions through audit company Deloitte, who will then document again to the Olympic frame. Controversial Uzbek businessman Gafur Rakhimov, who the USA Treasury Department has linked to “transnational criminal enterprises,” stepped down as AIBA president on Friday.
Rakhimov insists the allegations in opposition to him are “politically influenced lies.” His emergence as newbie boxing’s head in 2018 changed into simplest made viable using a sequence of scandals and accidents of circumstance. Relations among the IOC and AIBA had been hit hard at the 2016 Rio Olympics, while 36 officials and referees were suspended amid allegations of bout-fixing. Wu Ching-ko resigned in 2017 amid claims of multi-million dollar accounting fraud. Italian Franco Falcinelli then resigned the placement just months after taking on, allowing Rakhimov — the subsequent maximum senior VP — to step as much as grow to be first meantime after which everlasting president.
