Jeffries: Kenny was robbed

01 August 2008 – by Mark Doyle

Great Britains Tony Jeffries was left bemused by the scoring in Sundays light-heavyweight decider in Beijing, believing that Irelands Kenny Egan was the clear victor in his bout with Zhang Xiaoping of China.

Zhang was awarded the decision 11-7 but many felt that the judges had favoured the hometown favourite.

Certainly, Jeffries, who was beaten by Egan in the semi-finals, that the Dubliner had been hard done by.

I feel for Kenny. I think he should be walking away with a gold medal, the Sunderland fighter is quoted as saying by The Sun.

The scorings not been very good all the way through, but there it was terrible.

Zhang was hitting Kenny on the arms, which is not a scoring shot, but the crowd were going mad it wand was they who were effectively pressing the button.

When Kenny was hitting him with good clean shots they werent scoring and Zhang was touching Kenny with little shots and scoring.

I think Kenny should have won by three or four points.

However, Zhang felt that he was good value for his win.

I believe that in the first round that I was leading by two points but I think the other three rounds were pretty equal in terms of points,” he argued.

I believe that in terms of tactics were are similar and we are similar in terms of our skills.

In the fourth round when Kenny was attacking very aggressively I was able to counter that with some good footwork.