Barnes hits out at judges

22 August 2008 – by Mark Doyle

An emotional Paddy Barnes offered to give his Olympic medal back after being left distraught at not being awarded a solitary score during his light-flyweight semi-final defeat by Shiming Zou on Friday.

Barnes came out on the wrong end of a 15-0 scoreline and while he did not feel he had won the bout, he was furious that his best shots went unrewarded.

“There’s no way I lost 15-0. I hit him with clean shots. The way the judging is out here, it should be the judges being drug-tested, not the fighters,” the 21-year-old from Belfast exclaimed.

“I don’t care about the bronze medal. They can keep it for all I care. Bronze is for losers.”