Boxing: Uppercut for officials as boxers sweat over scales

Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Dodgy scales threw confusion into the boxing weigh-in at the Commonwealth Games last night.

After several boxers had stepped on the scales and showed up as overweight, a check was done on the scales.

As boxers ran around the athletes' village and jumped into saunas desperately trying to shed some perceived excess weight, officials discovered a discrepancy.

A 50kg weight was brought up from the athletes' village gym and turned out to weigh 51.4kg on the official scales.

New Zealand team boss Billy Meehan said his team had a suspicion things weren't right even before last night's official weigh-in.

"[Greymouth middleweight] Nathan McEwen had tried a couple of scales yesterday and thought they weren't right," Meehan said last night."

So we almost expected it. They hadn't been calibrated.

"It was frustrating for the boxers, because they've worked hard to get their weight right."

Australian assistant coach Don Abnett went further.

"I have never seen nothing like it," he said. "Our boys were really down and worried they are going to get a real telling off from the coach for going overweight, when all along they are fine."

Abnett said two of the Australians showed up 700g overweight, headed away to sweat it off, returned and found they were 2kg heavier than before.

"It is ridiculous and now we have boys who have lost too much weight, which is not good."

The upshot is that all boxers were placed in their divisions and a re-weigh will be held today, which is far from ideal.

"I thought last year when I witnessed a bloke in Victoria win a fight with one arm I'd seen it all, but this even tops that," Abnett said.

The incident is an embarrassment for Games officials who have been hoping that once competitions begin the unflattering headlines which have dominated the leadup to the event would be over.