Michael Conlan’s Olympic medal NOT in the post

Michael Conlan’s Rio medal isn’t in the post and won’t ever be posted it seems.

Conlan’s infamous Rio 2016 quarter-final with Vladimir Nikitin was one of up to 10 bouts suspected to have been manipulated at the 2016 Olympic Games according to Profesor Richard McLaren – the man the AIBA has brought in to complete a second Rio investigation.

His initial findings were shared at a press conference in Lausanne earlier in the year and it was confirmed “a system for the manipulation of bouts by officials existed at Rio.

“The seeds of this were sown years before starting from at least the Olympic Games of the twenty-first century through the events around 2011 and London 2012.”

Conlan’s bout with Nikitin was one highlighted as one to have been may have been ‘manipulated’.

“Four judges would be required to vote in favour of a particular boxer in order to ensure that he/she was the winner. This was the case in the Conlan fight, and may indicate that the result had been predetermined.”

Upon the publication of the report, Conlan, who was the ‘robbed’ poster boy of the Games after his massive reaction to quarterfinal defeat and the blatant injustice of his exit, called for his medal to be sent in the post.

It was a tongue-in-cheek move at first but the fact he only requested bronze – because he hadn’t proven he was gold or silver medal-worthy in the ring – shows some thought went into it.

Regardless the Belfast world title hopeful won’t be getting an early Christmas present in the form of a long-overdue and deserved Olympic medal.

In the second of his three report findings revelations, McLaren again pointed to ‘rampant’ manipulation but claimed the subjective nature of boxing’s scoring and ‘the fact that the predetermined result was often the correct result”, meant it was hard to prove the specific fights involved beyond a reasonable doubt.

McLaren revealed, he and his team were unable to work out the system of cheating and its methodology, so as result they are unable to declare which specific bouts were manipulated.

“The officiating in boxing is highly subjective as there are no real benchmarks by which to evaluate the bouts,” he added. “So while we tried a number of different methodologies so we could declare a bout was manipulated, we concluded that it’s not possible to do that to the level to bring disciplinary action in the sport.”

Worryingly McLaren also revealed he found evidence of corruption in other areas of the sport as recently as the World Junior Boxing Championships in Poland in April.