Olympics Try Bribery to Keep Boxing Honest -- Huh?

This seems like some twisted logic -- now there will be competition to see who can solicit the biggest bribe -- so they can double it. Will this work?
http://www.charlotte.com/observer/natwor/docs/bribes0919.htm

Charlotte Observer -- Tuesday, September 19, 2000
Olympics try bribes to stop bribery -- By TIM DAHLBERG, Associated Press

SYDNEY, Australia -- Olympic boxing has come to this: Even the people running it are offering bribes. Actually, amateur boxing officials are going one better by giving Olympic judges and referees an offer they may find hard to refuse: Double the bribe in cash for anyone reporting an attempt to influence the scoring of a fight. If that doesn't work, spy cameras high above the ring in the Sydney Exhibition Center are trained on judges to help make sure there's no misconduct.

With boxing long suspect in the eyes of some, new measures are being taken to keep it scandal-free in Sydney. "We mean it," said American Loring Baker, who made the double-your-bribe offer. "By doing this, we are actually trying to eliminate the possibility of a bribe."

The logic may seem convoluted, but amateur officials hope just the fact the offer was made will be enough to keep the 35 referees and judges in line during the games. That would be a change from previous Olympics, where questionable decisions raised suspicions of shady dealings. "We don't have any hard evidence of judges being crooked," said Baker, general secretary of the International Amateur Boxing Association. "But we have to remove the shadow of doubt."

That shadow has lingered over amateur boxing for a long time. It exploded into public view during the tumultuous Seoul Olympics in 1988, when Roy Jones Jr. lost a gold medal to a South Korean. Amid calls to ban boxing from the Olympics, the boxing association introduced computerized scoring to try to ensure all boxers got a fair break. Problem was, there were still human judges punching the buttons.

That was all too evident only last year at the World Amateur Boxing Championships when four boxing association judges were suspended and their decision reversed after Russian welterweight Timour Gaidalov was given a win over Cuba's Juan Hernandez. The decision touched off a protest, and Cuban heavyweight Felix Savon later refused to enter the ring for his fight with American Michael Bennett.

Cuban President Fidel Castro expressed outrage, and a sports commentator on government-controlled television called the judges "miserable, corrupt people." "You hear everything about that one bout and nothing about the other 298," Baker said. "We found out it was biased and we took action."

In Sydney, the 35 judges and referees were selected only after going through a weeklong screening program in Kazakstan in June where they judged fights in groups and had their scores compared with each other. Boxing association officials were at first shocked about how much the scores differed - proving that an incompetent official can be just as bad as a corrupt one. But as the week went on, the judging improved and 35 of the 53 in attendance were picked to work the Olympics.

The 35 have been under scrutiny from the opening bout. Besides the spy cameras, a special boxing association commission was formed just to keep an eye out for any problems. Scoring is analyzed daily, with commission members on the lookout for any suspicious discrepancies. "The judges and referees are very aware of the problems and the fact their performance has to be exemplary," Baker said. "We have to prove the other people who criticize our sport wrong."

So far, so good, at least in the preliminary rounds in Sydney. The judges who push buttons when they see a punch land - three of the five must agree within a second for a punch to count - seem to have gotten most decisions right in the first days. In Seoul, there were 37 scoring protests; in Atlanta, only three. Through 71 bouts of these games, there have been none. "I think pretty much the scoring has been right on," said U.S. coach Tom Austin. "I think they're picking up on the punches landing."

That doesn't mean, of course, that boxing is home free. Which is precisely why Baker made his bribe offer. "The various ways to shade the scoring with the computer, we've greatly diminished the possibility of doing that and it going undetected," Baker said. "But it's an ongoing process."

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