Olmps

failed to act in time, whether by accident or design.. So in 2011, a new code of points was introduced.. Judges now score each boxer during the rounds, with no time limit on recording hits (beyond having to relay their reckonings at the end of a round)..The score for each round is calculated on the basis of the three most similar scorings – the egregious verdicts of the other two judges are discounted..The ‘similar scores’ are then averaged.. Moves are afoot to develop sensor packed boxing suits that register hits electronically, as in Taekwondo, but they will not be used in London..

Safety and Equipment

boxing is potentially dangerous. This is particularly

true of the professional game..You only have to look at a punchdrunk ex-pro to see the long-term effects of too many blows to the head.. But at amateur level, extensive measures are taken to minimise the risks..These include fewer rounds, the wearing of head guards (and chest protectors for women), a maximum age of 34, and a ‘one punch, one point’ scoring system with no bonuses for high impact blows or knockdowns..

There is also extensive medical supervision: for every bout, a boxer must be certified fit to fight by a doctor appointed by the AIBA Medical Commission, and there are complex rules about how long boxers who have suffered blows to the head of varying severity must wait before fighting again.. One knock-out or rsch (Referee Stops Contest due to Head-blows) leads to a bar on competing for thirty days; three within a twelve-month period leads to an enforced 360 day break..

The Finer Points

STANCE

Boxers typically stand sideways on to their opponents,

with the left foot advanced. .The fists are raised, the right one protecting the chin and the left one doing most of the work via jabbing..The active use of the right fist is largely restricted to hooks

and uppercuts..This stable position is maintained by the fighter moving around the ring with their left foot leading and right foot following without overtaking it. . Fighters known as southpaws reverse the limb positions, leading with their right feet and jabbing with their right hands..

Each boxer has a characteristic stance.. Some fighters hold their hands at or slightly above the level of their heads.. Floyd Patter- son was famous for using this ‘Peek-a-Boo’ stance.. Other boxers hold their hands low.. Most find a happy medium..

PUNCHES

Most punches fall into one of four categories:

The jab is the most commonly used punch and is made with a quick, straight extension of the lead hand..

The hook is a curving punch delivered in a sweeping arc. . Usually made with the lead hand, it begins with the fist at waist level and ends (if all goes to plan) with it striking the side of the opponent’s head..

The uppercut is a punch typically made with the rear hand that moves rapidly upwards from the waist towards the opponent’s chin..

The cross is often a surprise punch.. It is thrown with the rear hand, with the lead hand simultaneously taking up a defensive position.. It’s like an orthodox fighter momentarily turning into a southpaw (or vice-versa)..

STYLE

Every boxer has a basic approach to their art, deter-

mined by body type and personality, and each has its ‘structural’ strengths and weaknesses.. Much of the character of a bout is determined by the way the styles of the protagonists mesh..All other things being equal (which they never are), a slugger will do well against an in-fighter but poorly against an out-fighter..

However, it’s not quite as simple as that..The best boxers are able to change style to suit the circumstances, and not all of the common styles are mutually exclusive..You can easily be an out- fighter/counter-puncher (though you can’t be an out-fighter/ in-fighter)..

In-fighters like to get in their opponents’ faces. . Classic examples include Joe Frazier and the great Hungarian light middleweight Laszlo Papp..

Out-fighters do the opposite, preferring to keep their distance and wear their opponents down with long range jabs.. No one could call him typical, but Muhammad Ali (who made his name at the Olympics as Cassius Clay) fell into this category..

Sluggers (the most famous of whom was probably George Foreman) rely on power rather than finesse..They need good chins because they tend to get hit a lot..

Punchers (take a bow,Oscar de la Hoya) stay close to their opponents, looking to catch them with uppercuts and hooks..

Counter-punchers seek to exploit momentary lapses in their adversaries’ defences while they are throwing punches, rapidly launching counter-punches of their own..This ‘get yours in first’ policy, brilliantly exemplified in the 1990s by Roy Jones Junior, requires excellent reflexes..

The eighteen-year-old boxer who won the light heavyweight gold at

Rome 1960 was a long way from the finished article but all the ingredients were there to see. He faced a dangerous opponent in Poland’s Zbigniew Pietrzykowski (known as ‘Ziggy’ to nervous American commentators), a tricky southpaw with a monstrous right hook, but Clay was quick, smart and sassy enough to score a comprehensive victory.

At the after-fight press conference, a Soviet journalist posed a tricky question: how did the boxer feel about the fact that there were many places he, as a negro, was barred from in his own country? Clay robustly defended America, asserting that ‘we’ve got qualified people working on that problem’, but on his return to Louisville, Kentucky, he was forced to recognise that the Commie hack had a point. Having been refused service in a hamburger joint, despite a ‘do you know who I am?’ routine, he and his friend were pursued by bikers to Jefferson County Bridge on the Indiana border.The ensuing fight didn’t go well for the bigots but for Clay the episode showed the hollow tokenism of his Olympic victory.He hurled his gold medal into the Ohio River in disgust.

Thirty-six years later, visibly shaking from the effects of Parkinson’s disease, Muhammad Ali was given the honour of lighting the Olympic cauldron at Atlanta. He was also awarded a gold medal to replace the one he had jettisoned.

Boxing Goes to the Olympics

Given the presence of the sport at the ancient games and

the classical-mindedness of the organisers, it is surprising that there was no boxing tournament in Athens in 1896..The explanation is that they felt the contemporary sport was too ungentlemanly.. Boxing instead made its modern Olympic debut at St Louis in 1904.. The competitors were all American, an unsatisfactory arrangement blamed on a late decision to include the sport in the programme..

The boot was on the other foot at London 1908..There were home victories in all five weight divisions but then nearly all the boxers were British.. One rare exception was Australia’s Reginald ‘Snowy’ Baker, who won a silver in the middleweight but felt

that he had been a victim of biased officiating.. He may have had a point – the winner, Johnny Douglas, was the referee’s son.. Baker lodged a complaint but to no avail..

The sport was absent from Stockholm 1912, as it was banned in Sweden.. But pugilism was back at Antwerp 1920, with an expanded programme of eight weight classes..The USA won three of them, Great Britain two..The same two nations finished top of the medals table at Paris 1924, the first Games at which each country was limited to one entrant per weight category. .At this stage, bouts consisted of three rounds, the first two 3 minutes long and the final one 4 minutes..

The extra minute in the last round was dropped for the Amsterdam Games in 1928, a tournament marked by unruly crowd behaviour..The most shameful episode occurred at the end of the flyweight semi-final. .When South Africa’s Harry Isaacs was announced the winner, supporters of the USA’s John Daley surrounded the judges and menaced them until they reversed their decision..The officials cravenly claimed they had got the fighters’ scores mixed up..

Los Angeles 1932 was the first Olympics in which boxers were permitted to wear gum-shields and ‘cup protectors’, as groin guards are euphemistically known..At Berlin 1936, the German hosts had to share top spot in the medals table with France, just as the USA had had to with Argentina and South Africa at the previous Games..

Changes were afoot after the SecondWorldWar.. Bronze medal fight-offs took place for the last time at London 1948, and four years later two new weight categories (light welterweight and light middleweight) were added to the Olympic programme..American boxers dominated the Helsinki 1952 tournament, claiming half the gold medals..

Soviet boxers had competed in Helsinki but Melbourne 1956 was the tournament in which they really made their mark, finishing with three gold medals to Great Britain and the USA’s two each.. But the star of the show was Hungary’s Laszlo Papp, who won the light middleweight division to become the first boxer to win three Olympic titles..

The tournament at Rome 1960 is best remembered for introducing the world to a cocky young Light Heavyweight called Cassius Clay.. As Muhammad Ali, he was to secure immortality through contests with the winners of the heavyweight title at the next two Games: Joe Frazier (1964) and George Foreman (1968)..

Cuba emerged as a major boxing power at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, winning three gold medals to the USSR’s two..The Caribbean nation has topped the boxing table in five of the subsequent nine Games.. It had to play second fiddle to the USA in 1976, though, when the American brothers Michael and Leon Spinks both won golds, as did the great Sugar Ray Leonard in the light welterweight division.. Meanwhile, bantamweight Gu Yong Jo won North Korea’s first ever Olympic boxing title..

The Revolutionary Cubans

One of the most striking features of Olympic boxing over the last four decades has been the dominance of the Cubans. Seven of the last ten heavyweight champions have come from the island, and they

have landed a stack of medals in most other weights.

The secrets of Cuba’s success include a state system which identifies promising boxers at a young age and nurtures them carefully thereafter, plus a ban on professional fighting that came into effect in 1962. The cycle of victory is also self-reinforcing, with former champions turning to training and imparting their wisdom to the younger generation. But the country’s biggest advantage in amateur boxing is cultural. Cubans regard Olympic boxing as their thing. Successful fighters are considered heroes of the Revolution and are feted accordingly.

The attitude that has powered so many Cuban boxers to the top of the podium was exemplified byTeófilo Stevenson,heavyweight champion at three successive Games between 1972 and 1980. In the late 1970s, he was reportedly offered $5m to fight Muhammad Ali.Teófilo refused, saying‘What is one million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?’

In the absence of American boxers, Cubans notched up five victories at Moscow 1980, including a third successive heavyweight crown for the awesome Teófilo Stevenson.. Cuba boycotted LA 84, a tournament which saw the wearing of head-guards made mandatory. .The light heavyweight competition was mired in controversy when Evander Holyfield was disqualified in the semi-final for allegedly throwing a knock-out punch after the referee had called ‘break’. .The eventual gold medallist, Yugoslavia’s Anton Josipovic certainly wasn’t convinced – he hauled Holyfield on to his winner’s podium at the medal ceremony..

Seoul 1988 was marred by outrageous judging in the final of the light middleweight competition..The American Roy Jones Jr landed almost three times as many punches as South Korea’s Park Si Hun but lost all the same..The host nation didn’t come up smelling of roses in the bantamweight contest either..When local boxer Byun Jong-Il lost to Bulgaria’s Alexander Hristov after having two points deducted for head-butting, his trainer got into the ring and walloped the referee, New Zealander KeithWalker, on the back.. Cue general mayhem.. Even one of the security guards called in to calm things down kicked Walker in the head.. On a brighter note, Kenya’s Robert Wangila became the first black African to win an Olympic boxing gold..

The Cubans were back at Barcelona in 1992, winning seven golds including the first of three from Teófilo Stevenson’s heavyweight successor Felix Savon..They have topped the medals table ever since, except in 2008, where China entered the picture for the first time.. It remains to be seen whether the nation’s two gold medals in Beijing were a sign of things to come..

Why Watch Canoeing?

With contestants competing directly against each

other, sprint canoeing is exciting in much the same way as rowing, and for that matter all forms of racing in lanes.. But there is also an atavistic thrill in watching paddlers going flat out, especially teams of them working in unison..There’s something satisfyingly primitive about it, doubtless reflecting the importance of simple watercraft in the lives of our ancestors..

Slalom canoeing, by contrast, is like watching people flung into a gigantic washing machine.. How are they going to make sense of their chaotic environment and assert dominion over the teeming waters?The answer:by becoming one with their boats..This is particularly true of kayakers, who are organically coupled to their vessels via their spray decks..The two effectively become one organism – an aquatic centaur, if you like..As the boats go one at a time, slalom is more about battling the elements (albeit in contrived form) than direct competition with the other contestants.. It demands strength, courage and quickness of thought, and makes excellent viewing..

The Story of Canoeing

Predating the invention of the wheel by several millen-

nia, the canoe is one of the most ancient forms of transport: the oldest known example, displayed in a museum in Assen in the Netherlands, dates from around 8000bc..The first canoes were dugouts, made from hollowed-out tree trunks, but over time all manner of variations were developed, from the outrigger canoes of Polynesia to the birch bark constructions of eastern North America..The word ‘canoe’ is believed to be derived from kenu, the Carib term for a dugout..

The first kayaks – the word comes from the Inuktitut qajaq, meaning ‘man boat’ – were constructed by the Inuit around 4000 years ago.. Made by stretching seal skin over driftwood frames, they were tailored to fit their owners, with a length typically three times that of their outstretched arms..