Controversial decision in Roy Jones Jr.'s gold medal bout in 1988
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I cannot place the terrorist acts at the Munich games at the top of a sports "travesty list". Just because it was during the olympics and the victims were athletes, does not give any grounds to mention this horrible act in the same breath as athletes and or teams being robbed by bad calls. The games wherever they were held or will be held in the future will always, in some way, have that hanging overhead.
Now as for olympic "sports travesties", they Roy Jones Jr. decision, in my opinion is by far and away the biggest robbery in olympic history. I'm sure there are a lot of "travesties" that could be debated, and the '72 U.S. basketball decision is a close second, but that fight decision takes the cake for me. I have never seen such a one-sided competition in any sport get messed about the way this fight was. The basketball game was a close, and competitive game, and yes the U.S. got hosed, yet they still could have d'd up and stopped them for a third time instead of focusing on how they were getting hosed, I'm not blaming the team at all , but I believe it can be argued that the U.S. team could still have prevented the loss even though they were getting hosed. The Jones fight was a flat out joke. Beyond that, the only way to describe the way the fight went down would require the use of vulgre and profane language not suitable for this post. It was obvious corruption, and all fingers pointed at South Korean officials, there had to be a reason or some incentive for those non Korean judges to throw that decision. The reason I believe that the Jones hosing stands alone in olympic sports "travesties" is the fact that that one decision completely changed the way boxing is scored in the olympics. The electronic scoring system is used now because of that fight.
