Mick Conlan ROBBED in Rio

Mick Conlan has been disgustingly robbed this afternoon at the Rio Olympics, denying Irish boxing a bronze medal.

Following a tough last 12 days, Irish boxing’s Olympic nightmare was given a sickening end today as the Clonard 24 year old was ridiculously ruled to have lost his quarter final to Russian Vladimir Nikitin.

The Belfast star was a heavy favourite for the bout, but was still facing a dangerous opponent who had won World Championships silver in 2013 (where he beat Conlan) and also finished ahead of the Irishman in last year’s WSB rankings.

Indeed the disgraceful decision in favour of Russian Evgeny Tischenko last night in the heavyweight final, as well as the Vladimir Nikitin’s own dubious victory in the preceding round, meant that many went into today’s bout with a sense of trepidation.

These fears proved to be well-founded as Conlan was outright robbed by the three scoring judges.

The AIBA World Champion began and ended the opening round on the outside, but also showed his ability to fight on the inside in a brilliantly display, but was ludicrously adjudged to have lost the round on all three cards.

Conlan went to war in the second and battered Nikitin from pillar to post and deservedly won on all cards to level it up and set up a grandstand finish.

The third was the closest of the three rounds, with both tired. However Conlan seemingly did more than enough to take the slugfest of a round, and the fight. However the judges somehow disagreed and all gave the round to Nikitin meaning the horrific final scorecards all read 29-28 in favour of the Russian.

There’s not much more to say.