AIBA suspends officials after recent controversies

After a fairly decent start, the judging in Rio’s boxing has taken a sharp downswing in recent days. From Vassily Levit’s befuddling "loss" to Evgeny Tischenko to Michael Conlan’s epic rant following his fight with Vladimir Nikitin, fans and athletes are rapidly losing faith in the Games’ neutrality.

In response, the AIBA today announced that they had suspended "the concerned referees and judges" while "strongly" restating that there is no objective proof of corruption. They did not name the specific officials or which decisions were "not at the levels expected."

It’s heartening to see any sort of response from the AIBA, but it does raise the question of how they allowed incompetents in in the first place. It’s not like some these decisions could be explained away by a judge favoring one scoring criteria over another; these men are apparently incapable of properly assessing whose ass is being kicked.

You’d think there’d be some serious vetting. The Olympics are kind of a big deal.

Hopefully, we’ve seen the last of these shenanigans. Cross your fingers.