Boxing: Pownceby falls flat when it counts

By DAVID LEGGAT

In the end you had to ask: Was it all worth it?

For all he had been through to get to the Olympic Games, with the backdrop of a fierce spotlight on his criminal past, it fell flat for light heavyweight Soulan Pownceby in the space of nine minutes at the Peristeri boxing hall in suburban Athens.

The bare facts are that the Canterbury fighter was so badly outclassed by his Turkish opponent, Ihsan Yildirim Tarhan, that the referee pulled the pin on the four-round bout one round early with the score reading 26-6.

"Due to a significant difference in points" etc etc boomed the announcer. And that was that.

Pownceby, with his coach, Phil Shatford, leading the way, hurried out of the hall without a word.

It was an undignified end to an affair which polarised the country. But if 29-year-old Pownceby felt he had nothing left to say, New Zealand chef de mission Dave Currie defended the boxer's right to be in Athens.

Pownceby had qualified by winning the Oceania Games gold medal. There had been suggestions at the time, even among boxing aficionados, that his weight division was weak, that he had been a bit jammy to get through.

Yet he had simply done what was required. The decision was left in the hands of the New Zealand Olympic Committee.

Then came the other aspect of the debate: whether he was a worthy Olympian when it came to light he had been jailed for the manslaughter of his five-month-old daughter in 1995 and had subsequently been involved in other violent incidents after his release.

Currie was unequivocal that Pownceby should not have been denied his trip to Greece.

"Our view is he's been convicted, he's paid a high price and he's making a very positive effort to turn his life round and we will support him," Currie said after the fight.

He added that if Pownceby had been refused a place because of his past, it was tantamount to believing a person was not capable of changing their life.

Pownceby, rather than slipping out the side door of the Olympic village and back home, will stay on as part of the New Zealand support team. That could include offering support to other small team sections of the New Zealand group.

"He's made it clear he's keen to be part of that," Currie added.

As for the fight, he described Pownceby as "extremely disappointed".

"He had high hopes he would perform better than he did. To not go the distance is disappointing."

Pownceby had heavyweight support in the crowd in the form of NZOC secretary general Barry Maister, Currie and New Zealand's former International Olympic Committee representative, Tay Wilson.

The Turk was 8-4 up at the end of the first round. In the second he copped a spectacular hip throw, more at home in a wrestling ring, from the New Zealander.

But Tarhan took the contest out of Pownceby's reach by turning on what baseballers call a no-hitter, keeping his opponent scoreless as he raced out to a 17-4 lead.

There was another partial hip toss in the third round as Pownceby tried to shake himself free of his opponent, and the loss of a point on the referee's call, and it was all over.

One view of what happened yesterday will be quiet relief. Relief that someone who had provoked such controversy was out of the Games.

But there is another aspect to the Pownceby affair.

If he had been selected for the Games team as, say, a table tennis player or a swimmer, would the anti-Pownceby brigade have been as virulently opposed to his inclusion?

Pownceby's sport is by nature violent. Match that alongside his past and in many minds there are the ingredients for an unpleasant picture. Had he played another sport of a less overtly combative nature, combined with his often-quoted determination to make a fresh start to his life, he might have found a less troubled path to the Olympic team.

But in the end he got his chance to prove himself in the ring and came up well short.

* David Leggat is the Herald's chief sports writer.