- 12 Aug 08, 04:25 PM
Viticulture is the centuries-old science of knowing everything there is to know about grapes.
Protecting them from pests, monitoring their growth and working out when best to harvest them for making fun stuff like wine, these are all key duties for your average viticulturist.
They would also know exactly when grapes go sour.
I wonder then what they would make of two very different responses to British defeats in martial arts events at the Olympics on Tuesday.
The first British gladiator to go down was Joe Murray.
The 21-year-old bantamweight came to Beijing with realistic medal hopes after his breakthrough performance nine months ago at the 2007 world championships in Chicago.
On his way to a bronze medal there the chirpy Mancunian beat China's Gu Yu, a classy southpaw with quick hands. Gu had won their only other contest at a tournament in China.
Last week's draw for the Olympic tournament gave them a chance for a best-of-three decider in the first round of the 54kg category. Everybody who saw the draw knew instantly that Murray would be up against it.
And so it proved. Gu leapt to a 4-0 lead, put the Brit down in the third and kept out of reach down the stretch to record a straightforward 17-7 win.
Straightforward to the five judges, that is. Those of us at the half-full but still impressively raucous Worker's Gymnasium not from China were a little less sure about it all.
Before I go any further, let me clarify a few details: Gu did deserve his win (he landed the more telling blows) and Murray, a tremendous 2012 prospect with real character, was not at his best.
Neither of those two points, however, detracts from what was another dismal example of judging in Olympic boxing.
Quite simply, Gu was rewarded for every blow he struck, while Murray seemed to get a point for every other punch he landed - the kind of two-for-one deal you don't need.
Does this matter? A 17-14 defeat is still a defeat, after all.
It was a question the British media put to Murray and Team GB's coach Terry Edwards and the two struggled to pull their punches.
Murray, still panting from his late attempts to catch the rapidly retreating Gu, was clearly disappointed with himself.
But he was also hacked off about the number of shots he landed that were not recognised by the required three of five judges. They only have a one-second window to press their buttons, so blows do go unrecorded, but there is no doubt Murray suffered more of these misses than his opponent.
"They were giving him points for everything," said Murray. "I was hitting him clean and they still weren't giving me points. They let him have it his own way."
He added that the same thing happened the last time they met in China and while I can't comment on that contest I can assure you Murray caught Gu with a peach in the first round everybody but three of the five who mattered most must have seen.
There followed an even stranger decision from the American referee. Both boxers were holding but Gu seemed to be the hugger-in-chief. The ref appeared to agree and awarded Murray his first two points of the contest only to make the penalty irrelevant by giving Gu two as well.
"Two people can't hold or there's no fight," said a mystified Murray. "(The referee) had to pick one or the other. He picked the Chinese lad but, because it was in his backyard, he took two points off me as well."
Edwards found it even harder to keep his disappointment in check.
"You all saw it, you're witnesses," he railed. "I thought they were very generous to the Chinese lad.
"You expect a little bit of bias sometimes but you come to the Olympics and you expect a level playing field."
He went on to acknowledge that his charge didn't produce his best form and accepted the result, if not the margin. But even then he suggested it could all have been very different.
"The scores make the difference. We had our gameplan and it was working. But the scoring was stupid and that changed it."
Edwards carried on by saying he didn't want to be accused of "grouching" but there was always another "but" not far behind.
He finished by pointing out that the Ukrainian team lodged a complaint after their lightweight Oleksandr Klyucho was adjudged to have lost 10-8 to another Chinese fighter on Monday.
Will there be a British protest? No, but it is arguable there should be. How else will the situation improve?
But Edwards knows a complaint now would probably place his six fighters still in the competition at a serious disadvantage. It is never a good idea to annoy the judges in sports as subjective as amateur boxing.
And to give Murray his due, his response was to throw down the gauntlet for an Olympic rematch - "let's see what kind of man he is on my patch".
It should also be mentioned that Gu, perhaps unintentionally, added some spice to the conspiracy pot by praising his vanquished opponent after the fight.
"He is strong and I think he is better than me," he said.
So is it really "sour grapes" to complain after a defeat when you might be right? Are those grapes not sour but perhaps a little unripe?
The second British combat loss came at the judo venue - a wonderfully compact gymnasium that creates a terrific atmosphere (I only wish I knew more about what was happening).
Euan Burton also came to these Games with dreams of Olympic success. With two European and one world championship bronze medals to his name, the 29-year-old was looking for a trinket of a different colour here.
But Burton, by his own admission, didn't deliver. His second and final defeat came in the repechage to Brazil's Tiago Camilo, the reigning world champion.
"I gave it my best but it's massively disappointing," he admitted. "I'm not particularly happy with my form throughout the competition. I thought when I got here I'd be one of the contenders."
But by the time he came up against Camilo, the 29-year-old Scot looked exhausted. He had clearly expended too much gas in his earlier contests by not finishing them earlier.
"I didn't score the big scores, and to win medals you've got to get big scores quickly," he explained.
There is a subjective element to judo's judging too but there were no complaints from Burton or the British judo camp on this front.
I spoke to young British judo players Sally Conway and Sarah Adlington (here as part of Team GB's "Olympic Ambitions" attempt to give 2012 prospects a flavour of the Games) and they summed up it pretty accurately: he got thrown.
So no grumbles there, just honest assessment.
Murray could have opted for the same approach, but he's young and his adrenalin was still charging. Edwards too might wish now he had shown a tad more grace. But it isn't easy when you know you've got a case.
All I know is that all this talk of grapes has made me hungry. So I'm off for some cheese with their whines, justified or not.
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Comments
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I guess it is not a new discovery that the referees tend to make decisions in favor of the home teams. We see it all the time in football. Of course, the managers are always whining whenever it's not in their favor. But very few will point to the referee when his team was routed in a defeat like 1:4 or something similar to that.
On the other hand, I always feel it very interesting to see what the other manager says when his team was actually benefitted from the referee's decision. 9 out of 10 times, they believe that they have simply got what they deserve.
So I guess in four years time in London, there will always be someone else making similar complaints.
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It's certainly easier to say than do, but my advise to Murray is; don't get bitter, get better.
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Think you're on safer ground with this "Murray", Matt! Perhaps there won't be 400 responses to this one.
I watched the fight, am not British or Chinese, and I thought Gu Yu deserved to win (where was Murray's jab?) but that the scoring did favour the Chinese fighter - that first round non-scoring punch was a travesty. This always seems to happen in boxing though, always tough to beat American fighters in Vegas, for example, unless it's a ko.
AS he said, best not to lodge a complaint and wait for the next games on 'his' patch!
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Such a silly thing to happen when with modern technology the scoring could be completely automated with motion sensors in the gloves, headgear and vests.
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And even more than Euan Burton, Craig Fallon got an extremely dubious point called against him for supposedly being thrown on his back when it simply never happened. Fallon again, like Burton, was hugely disappointed but refused to point blame elsewhere after losing.
I can understand Terry Edwards' annoyance. The whole Gavin situation has really turned the spotlight on him and his charges and changed the mood. There's pressure there. In that situation, trying to rise above any perceived injustises may be difficult, but may be necessary.
Of course, no-one said that was ever easy to do...
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I have watched the fight a few times and honestly scored it 22-12 to Murray. The knockdown was a slap which should never have been a count. The holding by Gu was disgraceful, but was never properly punished. Gu ran away in the last round turning his back on Murray on several occasions, with no penalty.
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There will be a host of complaints until the refs get docked cash on subsequent video evidence. Murray lost, no doubt about it, but even so. Curiously the worst I can remember are the Americans. Add that to Ryder cup behaviour and "World Series" baseball...
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I'm always dubious of events that require judges scoring in the Olympics, have been since watching the 1984 olympics, when gold medals were gifted to Americans in both the boxing and gymnastics. I can't believe the IOC has never noticed this, so why don't they do something about it? Even though Yu Gu would have won the fight anyway in this case, any kind of bias is as unacceptable as people taking drugs, as far as I'm concerned. If this happens in the 2012 games, I think I'd feel embarrassed, as I would if I was cheating myself!
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I didn't see the fight in question so I can't make any comment directly on it. However I have been watching a lot of the boxing on the Irish national broadcaster RTE and their commentators and expert studio analysts have said on a number of occasions that some of the point scoring seems a bit strange. And these comments haven't been in connection with Irish boxers where once again you might think there could be a bias.
In fairness some of the sport associations have attempted to sort out the scoring system to try and eliminate bias. For example, gymnastics is now scored quite differently that it used to be in order to give more accurate and fairer scores. It may not be as obvious to the viewer how the scores are computed but it does seem to be a fairer system.
The irony is that the current boxing system was designed as a way of eliminating bias by having points when three out of the five judges press within a second. But unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working effectively.
It would be better if we could see some indication on the screen as to when an individual judge has indicated that a point should be scored. Then we would be able to see when three of them have scored at the same time. Also we could see how fairly each judge is scoring because we could look back and see what each individual judge scored for. It would then be far more obvious if judges were awarding points unfairly.
Until the system is completely open to be examined there will always be questions about it.
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Whilst on the subject of suspect judging I think Sarah Clark can consider herself a tad unlucky when you compare the waz-ari she was awarded and the Ippon the Austrian subsequently received.
Let's hope for some success from Winston tomorrow!
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I agree with the content that the result was fair whilst the margin wasn't. It does worry me that the trend since 1980, though not every games, could eventually lead to a situation like in Eurovision. Tactical points awarding that is very obvious to everyone except the organisers.
Good luck to the remaining six lads, you may have to knock 'em out boys
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Sour grapes def!
The chinese boxer deserved to win. If we Brits want to get better, then we have to perform to a higher standard and not get bogged down with how a loser didn't get his recognition! He was outboxed and lost....fact!
We need to set our aims and standards higher then quibble over judges, who at the end of the day, got the result right!
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Does anyone ever dope test the judges?
Yes Wu deserved his win but the inattentiveness to Murray's scoring had me wonder what the judges were on - whatever it was, it wasn't the match .
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Mightymike99,
No-one here is saying anything contrary to your point that he got beat by a better fighter on the day.
That does not invalidate the discussion about the scoring system though. If it had been a closer fight it would have mattered a great deal more. I don't think it's a quibble, rather a very important point, as it is in any sports that rely on a scoring system e.g. diving, gymnastics etc. Boxing could be said to be somewhat less subjective but evidently not completely so.
Oh yeah, saying "fact" at the end of a statement doesn't make it a fact.
Best to the Brit lads still in it.
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HEHEHE
Another British boxer found wanting.....what a joke.Why are the British such bad losers!!!
Having watched the fight three times Murray was COMPREHENSIVELY BEATING. Every single fight I have seen so far 100+ bouts there are so many punches not scored.
I remember watching a documentary about Idi Amin the former Ugandan hard man leader ( incidentally he was a boxer too) say "when you fight away from home or your different if you dont get a good start or KO your opponent you have lost.
Fiar play to Murray at least he made the weight unlike like muppet Gavin.....lol
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Having spent alot of the last few days channel hoping between events on the BBC's interactive service I have noted that it is not just boxing that seems to have some strange judging/scoring patterns.
You always expect massive home support from the crowd, but especially at the Olympics you expect TOTALLY impartial judging.
I am no expert but thought some of the diving marks were being over kind to Chinese divers (even though I believe they are unquestionably the best anyway), I note also that even the commentators are beginning to mention it openly.
The Chinese organisers are now into spectator control, the government are controlling their own press, they are trying to intimidate the foreign press ( note the APC's outside the international media centre ), so who is to say that the suggestion of potential intimidation to judges is not having an effect. They must have some thoughts in their minds as to the history of Chinese actions, and those of a weaker constitution may be inadvertently affecting the results?
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Galaxy-Man
Why is this funny to you? You clearly have no idea how hard these guys work to fight at this level.
It is obvious throughout every sport that the 'home' team get favoured. Whether it be football, cricket, boxing etc. Also remember the judges are human and therefore they will favour some countries over others. It will happen in London as well and I will be embarrassed by it. Why do think the 'home' nation always (generally) tops the medal table?
Fair play to Gu he did box better but he was favoured and only someone who knows nothing about the sport would think otherwise.
On the matter of Frankie Gavin - the guy who works with Ricky Hatton to help him make weight was effectively barred from helping him. He was only 3lb over which you can drop in next to no time. I think there was more to the situation than meets the eye. So to call him a muppet just shows how little you know about the situation, or even about the sport.
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Although it may be that Murray was not good enough on the day to beat Gu, one cannot ignore the psychological affect on Murray when returning to his corner at the end of the first round to be told he was 4-0 down.
I doubt that the Gu landed one legal punch in the first round (he was slapping), which resembled an all-in wrestling match.
The referee was weak and should have acted sooner to stop Gu persistently holding.
I assume that the judges sit at various points around the ring and record the legal hits that they see. If this is the case, then I can understand why the scoring conflicts with what we see on television. If the judges are watching television monitors then there is no excuse for their incompetence/bias.
I have noticed in particular that body shots rarely get scored, and that African boxers need a knockout to get a result.
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I watched the fight and the outcome could have been different if our man had not had to chase the chinese fella round to try and get a knock out.
Some of Gu's scored punches were a disgrace, I have seen harder in handbags at football matches on Regents Park.
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Why not just have judges from all over the world, i.e. no judges from your own country in your bouts? Common sense surely? Same for diving and everything else for that matter?
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Where sports are judged by officials rather than measured by quantifiable things like times, distances, weights and so on then subjectivity is impossible to avoid. And, the big brother of subjectivity is bias.
It happens. If we didn't expect it, especially in the far east, then we are naive in the extreme. Perhaps our boxing team should have appointed Terry Wogan as an advisor. He would have wised them up about geographical voting...
My only beef about this though is, that when we get the games in four years time, we will probably try to maintain some starry-eyed notion of "fair play" and diddle our home-grown athletes out of medals that other nations have been helping themselves to liberally for years.
However, if the boxers are still unhappy I have a suggestion to resolve it.
Rig them all up with a body suit, gloves and headguard that go "HONK!" or "PARP!" or "WHEE!" every time they get struck. That way it would remove the doubt and might make it more fun for us watching too.
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Watching the boxing today there seemed so many poor refereeing and judging decisions. If i was the Russian who got stopped by our Super heavy then I would not be best pleased this evening. So perhaps the decision not to appeal by the GB camp was a correct one. It is a fact in sport that referees are prone to make up for previous poor decisions by with another poor decision perhaps we were the beneficiaries this time
But it has always been the same. Every Olympics I sit and watch and wonder if I have been watching the same fight.
This problem goes much further afield - wherever there is a sport that is judged subjectively there is always room for controversy - gymnastics, dressage, judo tkd, diving in this olympics alone.
It is hardly any surprise to find emotions turning to anger for those who have invested years of effort and sacrifice only to find that after 8 minutes of effort (in the case of boxing), they have lost out through no fault of their own, any other reaction would in my view be close to saintly.
Cut them some slack.
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Matt,
Another oddly-structured piece.
You set the piece up as a look at two defeats: one taken with sour grapes, one without.
You then spend the majority of the article building a defence for the former only to end the article with this:
"Murray could have opted for the same approach, but he's young and his adrenalin was still charging. Edwards too might wish now he had shown a tad more grace. But it isn't easy when you know you've got a case"
So what is your point? That even though there was a case for appeal, the British team should have kept schtum?
Well, no, because you've answered that here:
"Will there be a British protest? No, but it is arguable there should be. How else will the situation improve?"
I can only guess that the mention of sour grapes was so you could crow-bar your viticulture reference into the into.
I'm still not clear as to which reaction you thought preferable?
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Hi brokenbra, sorry you didn't like the structure of the piece. Let me try to answer your points and perhaps that might help you see what I was attempting to do.
You're right to say it is based on the two GB performances I watched that day. Both reasonable medal hopes, both defeated. One without any controversy or complaints, the other with.
I was hoping to see two victories and write something entirely different.
Anyway, given what happened and, more importantly, what was said I decided to write something on reactions to defeat, in particular the issue of when a genuine grievance about a result crosses over into "sour grapes".
So that's why the majority of the article is about the boxing result and what was said afterwards. Were Murray/Edwards' words a case of sour grapes or were they fully justified and worth airing?
That is the debate I was hoping to spark.
The fact I offer both sides of the argument is to demonstrate that I myself don't know what the "right" thing to do here was. I sympathise with his (and other controversial losers') plight(s), I'd want to complain too, but I'd be worried about coming across as a sore loser.
The key word in the par you quote about a possible British protest is "arguable": as in you could argue that GB and other wronged parties should complain about poor judging and keep complaining until the situation is improved.
But I then say Edwards won't appeal (he told us he wouldn't) and give my interpretation, because that is all any of this, on why he isn't appealing.
Burton's story is different. He didn't perform and he lost. End of story and no hint of complaint about it. Of course if he had complained, now that would have been an open-and-shut case of sour grapes.
As for your final comment, I think you've got this the wrong way around. The article is about "sour grapes" and more specifically if having a post-loss moan can ever avoid that tag. The viticulturist reference is my attempt at a light-hearted way-in to the debate, as in who really knows when grapes go sour. That's not so poorly structured is it?
As for my opinion, I'm not sure that really matters here. I'm posing the question. To be honest, I'm pretty much on the fence on the Murray defeat. He did lose, but not by 10 points, and who knows how it would have gone if the scoring had been closer earlier on. Would I have moaned afterwards? Probably. Would I have calmed down and realised the cons of officially complaining? Probably.
Hope that clears things up a bit and thanks for reading.
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Murray got battered. The score was fair.
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Firstly, I think that this was a very well formed piece and it obviously "got the job done" as it has already sparked a mighty debate so well done Matt.
I'm an avid boxing fan but in recent years i have tended to avoid amateur bouts as the scoring system is erratic at all levels and weight categories to say the least. Having watched the first 3 Irish boxers win their first round fights I was delighted but I can honestly say that the referee gifted John Joh Nevan his win as he stopped his opponent from getting into any sort of rhythym by being pernickety in the extreme. I also counted 5 points for his more illustrious opponent that weren't counted. But, suffice to say I was delighted with the overall outcome. I watched the Murray fight and I can honestly say that if the scoring had been more efficient he would have been in with one hell of a chance. Keep in mind that these guys are told the scores at the end of each round and the knowledge that his punches weren't scoring would have frustrated him in the extreme and led to mistakes on his behalf. He boxed almost flawlessly in the final round for a man who must have been seething with anger so I think that on the whole there can be no question of any opinions being voiced after the fight being considered sour grapes.
The gulf in class between the facilities available in Britain and Ireland for amateur boxers and the rest of the world is enormous. I have trained in Galway, Dublin and London and I thought the facilities were exceptional back then. But after visiting a boxing club in Kiev and another in Boston since it amazes me that boxers from Britain and in particular Ireland can realistically be in with a very good chance in taking home one or more Bronze medals at the very least.
Best of luck to the rest of the British boxers and, as always, the very best of luck to the remaining Irish in the boxing. Come on Ken Egan!
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does anyone else agree that the poor standard of judging at this olympics warrants an investigation of somekind
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does anyone else believe that the poor standard of judging at this olympics warrants an investigation of somekind? or maybe even a change in the judging system?
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The judging is a total disgrace and frankly has put me off watching the boxing, diving, gymnastics, judo etc. For example I was watching a Chinese boxer get completely outclassed against a Russian. He was on the canvas about 5 or 6 times in a 4 rounder as he slipped or fell constantly, he scored with everything, and the Russian fighter was rightly disgusted at the end when he lost. It would be a good joke if people didn't train non stop for years to get to the games, just to be ripped off by bias. The judges should be ashamed of themselves. And this happens in nearly every fight I see. I watched the Cuban synchronised 10m divers get scored significantly lower by the American judges.
This is not sport, it is politics. If that is what I wanted I'd watch the news. Still, I can't wait for the Tae Kwon Do. If my 70 year old Mum was Chinese she could take part win a gold medal
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Wow, if independent international referees can be accused of bias, then maybe it's time to get rid of boxing altogether. It's such a subjective sport, noone seems to agree about which hit should score or not.
For such a manly sport, it's a shame the competitors are more content to cry like women. Oh wait, at least women would show a little more grace.
Sour grapes indeed!
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Amateur boxing is a joke just now - until they go back to 3 minute rounds we are going to have these chicken counter-punchers who get a lead then spend the rounds running away from their opponents.
The scoring is also a joke - I have watched many fights where a punch has missed by a a good foot yet scores yet one that clearly hits is not scored. Too many incompetent judges.
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What about Hawk Eye for boxing? We could run tests with the judges as targets!!
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Regarding the comment about funding for boxing I think that the draw of the professional game is the problem. Why would Sport UK (or whatever they're called) spend money on facilities and training if the individuals that win simply walk away and cash in.
Why not offer funding contracts that have a clawback upon turning professional (student loans for boxers!). With a couple of decent successes the system could quickly become self funding and the pro's would be keen to see how the money's being spent - they could even adopt / mentor an up and coming amateur...
I think I should enter sports admin :-)
Go Team GB
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as a trainer myself i find it hard to watch and listen to the to all the goings on in the olympic boxing we have known for years how the computer scoring works so why arent our lads trained to be more agressive and work more on keeping there hands up itseems to me that teery edwards and co havent got a clue when it comes to teaching our lads to fight southpaws i lost count on the times our lads keep putting there lead left foot on the inside to be honest i think joe murray is one of the worst boxers ive seen box for gb billy joe has a lot to learn if he is to get any better he slaps alot and throws a lot of punchies without looking to where they are ment to land i wouldnt call bradley saunders a very good fighter no spark or fire in the belly we need far beter trainers for our lads to improve and go onto better things we wont have a lot to look forward to in 2012 if we dont change we are not the only country to be hard done by in the scoring department so stop the whining even if one or two of our lads were hotpots for the pro game there is a saying not all good ams make good pros and from what ive seen theres plenty to be done to get our act togeather before 2012
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how we cant produce better fighters than murray b saunders jefferies and price is going to be our down fall in the long run the others i havent mentioned billy joe and alike are not going to fare much better in the future if the coaching system isnt shaken up trouble is we dont have the brains in this country to contiue to bring our lads on
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I was on a ship having a pre dinner drink with a couple of American guys when we were joined by two Australians. The anti English comments started straight away (fairly smartly dressed for dinner we were a "typical pair of Pommie stiffs" etc etc - "you can see why we got rid of them" etc etc - conspiratorial glance towards the Americans at this point.
The Americans merely looked on baffled at such unprovoked childish hostility.
"Geez what did you do to upset him?" said the good-natured Mike from Chicago. " I exist" was my reply.
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Paddy Barnes was comprehensively beaten by a superior boxer who happens tp be double world champion but the Irishmen kicked out over his defeat saying China is a vile country and should not be hosting the games. He also say he does not want the bronze and that they can keep it. What a lousey individual and a lousey boxer. He should be banned from the Olympics for life.
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Paddy is a great loser. He acknowledges that he lost but to not have been awarded a single point is a travesty. Boxing as these olympics is the embarrassment of the world. The chinese sports authority are an unscrupulous bunch and it will not be beyond the pale of them to have these judges in their pocket. I am not denigrating the chinese people, but this is truly a travesty and an affront to the intelligence of boxing viewers. Paddy's deserved points were appointed to his opponent. I guess if you cheat hard enough you can accomplish anything.
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Hizento
I don't condone what Paddy Barnes did but I think he is just exasperated for the tournament as a whole. Some of the scoring has been fraudulent-that's the only word for it. Now we have some Roumanian guy who has come out and said so. Don't know the full details but he is a judge of some sort and has been suspended for his remarks. Anybody know who he is?
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