Daina Moorehouse was the victim of a 'shameful' decision as she was eliminated from the women’s flyweight boxing at Paris 2024, according to Kenneth Egan
Moorehouse lost out to France’s Wassila Lkhadiri in the last-16 of the 50kg tournament at the Arena Paris Nord, with the home fighter taking a controversial split-decision win.
While the Bray 22-year-old won the opening round 3-2 across the five judges’ cards, she was left chasing the fight in the final round, after Lkhadiri was deemed to have won the second round 4-1, despite Moorehouse appearing to land the cleaner punches.
After the French woman also won the final round 4-1, the Irish corner reacted angrily to the decision, with head coach Zaur Antia seen remonstrating with officials.
Analysing the fight for RTÉ Sport, 2008 Olympic medallist Egan, made his feelings clear.
"It's absolutely shameful," Egan said.
"We know the work that goes into being an Olympian, it's so hard to get there, and for it to be taken away like that, by five people sitting around a ring.
"Daina won that fight. We all know it, everyone in the crowd knows she won it. She boxed out of her skin, we talked about it at the very start, she needed something soecial to win that fight and she boxed out of her skin. She won that fight tonight.
"Zaur [Antia] is going bananas in the corner. He knows, rightly so, that's a wrong decision, it's taking away a medal from Daina and it's disgusting."
Former world champion Bernard Dunne agreed with Egan’s verdict.
"It's hard for us to look at that decision and the scores they’ve given per round, and to reconcile what we have just watched. It's ridiculous.
"Daina, in the first round, she was the only one to land punches, only one to actually do any work.
"To go into that atmosphere, to perform as she did, to do all that was asked of her, and then have that taken away...
"This new boxing taskforce that they have talks about openness, transparency, then you see stuff like this."
'Ridiculous' and 'shameful' among the words used by Bernard Dunne and Kenneth Egan to describe the judging of Daina Moorehouse's split decision defeat to her French opponent#RTESport #Paris2024
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Egan also highlighted how the scoring of the second round was particularly crucial in the outcome of the fight, where four of the five judges sided with Lkhadiri.
"The judging dictates the style of the fight. Daina sat down after the second round and was told the score. Things had to change, but she was boxing brilliantly in the first two rounds and was winning the fight in her head.
"The judges didn't help out Daina at all. They weren't fair," he added.
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