Rio 2016 Olympics boxing: Vassiliy Levit robbed of heavyweight gold medal

Evgeny Tishchenko of Russia is going to forever be written down as the 2016 heavyweight Olympic gold medalist. But then, Park Si-Hun is the official 1988 light middleweight gold medalist, too.

And make no mistake, today’s decision of Tishchenko beating Kazakhstan’s Vassiliy Levit was right on par with the decision Park Si-Hun so infamously got over Roy Jones Jr in Seoul.

Levit outboxed and outlanded the taller Tishchenko. He outworked him. He flat-out won this fight. And the judges saw it for Tishchenko, who also received a very questionable win over Erislandy Savón of Cuba in last year’s World Championships.

On his way to the gold medal match, Levit defeated Fengkai Yu of China, Kennedy St-Pierre of Mauritius, and Erislandy Savón in the semifinal, a decision that was also debated, but was not this level of pure robbery.

Tishchenko defeated Brazil’s Juan Nogueria, Italy’s Clementine Russo (a two-time silver medalist), and Uzbekistan’s Rustam Tulaganov, which, again, was a debated decision.

The fans in Rio booed the decision, and mightily cheered Levit when he returned for the medal ceremony. They also booed Tishchenko, but Levit motioned for them to stop, if nothing else understanding that Tishchenko was not the person to blame for the decision.

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images