Heartbreak for Ward as Olympic appeal fails

Ireland’s Joe Ward has failed to get the nod from the Olympic Tripartite Committee when they finally nominated the boxers to complete the line up for the Olympic tournament in London.

With one place available at light heavyweight it had been hoped — if not expected — that the 18 year-old Westmeath man would get it after the atrocious decision that dumped him out of the European Olympic Qualification tournament in Trabzon in April.

Ward , the reigning European champion, had beaten Bahram Muzaffer of Turkey everywhere except on the computer which showed him losing the contest 18-15 when it was evident he had clearly won it.

It took the Tripartite Committee a long time to arrive at the decision and when they eventually did the announcement came in the form of a contradictory statement issued to the IABA: “Following the Olympic Qualifying guidelines approved by the IOC Executive Board, the next Best Boxer from the 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships is supposed to be selected. Following the Competition Protocol list, we regrettably found out that your boxer does not meet the qualification to be the next Best Boxer in your continent.”

It puzzled Irish High Performance Coach, Billy Walsh, who had spearheaded a drive to have the Trabazon decision overturned since the final bell was sounded in the contest.

“I just don’t understand the statement,” he said.

“To me it would appear to indicate that the place went to the next best boxer but Joe is ranked No 5 in the world and the only European above him is the Russian and he has already qualified for the Olympic Games.

“All I can say it is that it is very disappointing.”