The referees are dead right. It's a boxing match, not a chess match.....if the boxers are not boxing/engagaing/throwing punches, then they have to be warned. It doesn't have to be Wayne McCullough or Aaorn Pryor busy, but there needs to be some action/flow.
It is not about entertainment. It is about boxing.
'Don't mistake Motion for Action'
Thought referee was out of order personally, both boxers were sussing out their opponent, is it really his job to try to define their tactics in a fight?
Just going in swinging is one strategy, but equally valid is to suss out the other boxer and to counter what they're doing, and it's up to the judges to score what's happening with scoring punches and accuracy.
Good on Kellie for dictating how she wanted the fight to go and winning out.
De La Cruz on target for another gold. I bet that's going to kill you ;-)
I don't know does Kellie have to change that much. Don't think they've met before which is good for Kellie as she can switch from time to time and keep her opponent guessing. She wants to fight on the counter and I'd be fairly sure she'll get her wish. Brazilian is very strong,though, so going to be a huge test whatever way it goes down.
Maybe so - but if its completely out of the norm for refereeing then a medal match is not the place to start doing it....
Our athletes have been disappointing overall, no two ways about it. Have any of them recorded PBs? With GB as a bench mark, I;d say GB has had 40 plus finalists in athletics, we havent had one, in fact just two semi finalists.
What has the stage of the tournament got to do with it?
The rules are there for a reason....referees should not be criticised for enforcing them.
The girls were rightly warned to start boxing.....
What has it come to when in a boxing match a referee is criticsed because he warns the boxers to actuall box?
Stand by what I said, Kellie Harrington said this is something she hadnt heard from a ref since she was a teenager - its from the leftfield clearly.
I have seen and heard it several times...plenty times actually. And it is spot on. Boxing is for boxing....
Of course there will be lulls, and referees know this....nobody has issues here, but when it's a clear non engagement, then referees need to act.
This morning the referee was bang on...
Same during the Aidan Walsh QF. Warned Walsh for not engaging and running. Bang on.
Ya its a pity. Nothing to shout about in Track or Field events.
Also, the ref started issuing his warnings very early - I think only a minute or so had passed in the first round before he started telling them to engage. I'd have him down as the over zealous type, it was actually a decent fight and didn't need his intervention.
Has to be said though that the level of athletics competition has gone through the roof at these Games. One of the BBC presenters mentioned that 38 different countries have medalled in the athletics events. Everyone from around the globe is bringing their A game, meaning if you go there with a 'modest' athletics team, you're really up against it.
Why would GB be a benchmark ?
Seems like a completely unsuitable benchmark for Ireland
A minute is a long time for two boxers to be looking at each other and not engaging....too long...
And, maybe it was a decent fight because he rightly intervened? Made them actually box
But the fight had only just started and they were sussing each other out. It would be crazy for two evenly matched boxers just to lunge at each other and go for it hell for leather, the risk of one or the other conceding a load of blows would be big.
It was a minute into it...not 10-15 seconds....a full minute or so before he intervened. It's a 9 minutes fight only.....
Who says they should be lunging at each other?
The referee gave them 60 seconds or threabouts, and then decided to intervene to try and get some actual action..how he is criticized here is beyond me.
But I thought it was a decent and entertaining fight, much better than Kellie's one against the Algerian, which was very messy and not easy on the eye. It looked to me like it would have been a good fight anyway, even without the ref. The two of them would surely have started to fully engage in the second and third rounds.....it's just that it was a typically cagey fight between two evenly matched boxers.
She did do the necessary to win.
You posted 'brutal stuff' after the 2 warnings, which was a complete misread.
Brutal stuff would be being behind your opponent on points. Going in scoring one or none and taking two.
As oneeyed, the other poster said, she sussed out and boxed on her terms.
It's a fight, there's resistance. It doesn't work that you up the tempo offensively and come out on top. If that was the formula the 'sweet science' would be an easy game.
Boxing contains evasion and non commitment. Ali danced for a whole round and threw one punch in Ali v Liston II, the possible fixed fight.
Not to mention the fact that they've been terrible in the athletics for a country their size and considering how much they've spent funding that team. Mostly injuries, false starts, DQs and so far no gold medals.
If you were to set a benchmark for our athletics team for the future I'd maybe suggest Norway as a much better example.
But, even then, athletics is incredibly difficult to be successful in because so many countries are sending athletes of a good standard. Personally I'd be focusing the funding on other Olympic sports where there are easier wins to be had.
The old reliables, boxing, equestrian. Rowing, we had Drea from Kilkenny in the 80s, but it's one now obviously. Sailing back to Wilkins and Wilkinson, 1980, Annalise. We've tradition. Swimming possibly.
We had a great field tradition, O'Callaghan etc. McHugh in the javelin 1980s and 1990s. Eileen O'Keeffe was unlucky in 2008 with injury. Field might be better for us than track. We all hope a Ronnie Delaney or Sonia emerges, that's a 1 in 50 year event. Unfortunately Olympics after Olympics our track team, swimmers are filled with athletes who's PBs won't get them out of their heat. But they meet Olympic qualification standard.
Is equestrian really an "old reliable"? We've a single bronze medal to show for 22 Olympics.
Well probably not an old reliable, but one to target. We compete well in Nations Cups, individual Grand Prix etc. We should do a little better in Olympics.
We export so many great animals.
It's a money sport, isn't it? Some of those Olympic standard horse go for silly money like $10-15m sort of thing. Doesn't mean you can't compete, but it's not as easy as maybe people think. I think Heike Holstein actually competed on a horse she bred herself but I'd say that's a very rare thing in the sport.
Did RTÉ show any thing of Natalia Coyle? I missed bits of the round round up and I have to admit I mute the sound when they talk.
Need to hold on to more of the better ones. Money alright.
No might about it Cosmo. I will be really disappointed if she doesn’t medal. I believe this is her time. She has trained solely for this since she qualified. The horse is the one variable factor.
They showed her action today..
She’s in a good position for tomorrow. 3rd. 23 fencing wins vs 12 defeats.
Back in action 06:48 tomorrow in 200 metres freestyle swimming
Pentahlon is such a brilliant event.
To be honest I think we overplay the level of our success in Showjumping
Sure, we get the odd big win but if you dig below the headline there are soft wins where many top riders and countries have skipped the competitions we are celebrating. The meets where we do poorly are never reported.
The World Rankings would rarely have us as expected medallists
In most Olympic cycles we seem to scramble for Team qualification
I think Cians horse is quite young so might have a decent future with him. Owned by the Magniers of coolmore fame, i think, so it helps to have that sort of patronage behind you.
I think the argument may be more about under achievement than success tbh. And while there is some validity to that, i do think people tend to underestimate how difficult it can be to be competitive. Back in the old days the Army equine school was a great source of patronage and delivering top class horses, it's got more difficult and expensive to compete now.
