Dunne blasts decision in O’Rourke fight as ‘disgraceful’
Former Irish Athletic Boxing Association (IABA) High Performance Director, Bernard Dunne, with Aoife O'Rourke.
Former WBA super bantamweight world champion and Irish Athletic Boxing Association (IABA) High Performance Director, Bernard Dunne, has described the decision to give Elzbieta Wojcik the victory over Aoife O’Rourke in last Wednesday evening’s controversial last 16 Women’s 75KG bout as “disgraceful”.
As the fallout continues from the Castlerea boxer’s controversial exit from the Paris Olympics, Dunne, who is part of the analysis for RTÉ during the Games, told that he felt the referee had managed the fight extremely poorly.
"I don't know how they came to the decision that they did. I think Aoife did incredibly well, I thought she spoke incredibly well, but, for me, that was a disgraceful decision.
"On the scoring criteria they are using, one of them being competitiveness, unless this bout was a wrestling match, there wasn't so much competitiveness from the opponent and the referee I thought was extremely poor in managing it.
"He gave a warning very early against Wojcik and then he just cautioned her for the remainder of the bout. I've the bout on here in the background and I'm still confused how they came to the decision,” he said.
BBC boxing analyst, Steve Bunce, also questioned the verdict, saying “I don’t agree with that decision, I thought O’Rourke was a fairly comfortable winner.”
