Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2010/10/04/commonwealth_scales/

Flakey scales brand Commonwealth boxers bunch of blobs

'One at a time please sir'

By Joe Fay

Posted in Bootnotes, 4th October 2010 14:23 GMT

The Commonwealth Games boxing tournament collapsed into farce today as official scales delivered wildly inconsistent readings and declared virtually every fighter overweight.

Fighters who had been given readings above their weight class at the Delhi weigh-in rushed to sweat off extra pounds, with frantic runs, gym sessions or saunas, only to reweigh and get even higher readings.

Coaches, fighters and officials almost came to blows, with competitors worried that unnecessary weight loss will have damaged their chances, and health.

According to The Telegraph, officials initially accused concerned managers of fielding squads of secret fatties.

"All this fuss is created by the teams who have overweight boxers in their team. The scales are perfect," competition manager Lenni Gama said.

However, authorities finally backed down and agreed to recalibrate the scales after someone brought in a 50Kg weight from the gym - which delivered a reading of 51.4Kg on the official scales.

The scales will be recalibrated and the weigh-in carried out tomorrow. However, this is unlikely to satisfy everyone, as fighters will be left with even less time to address any genuine weight problems.

Aussie team assistant coach Don Abnett told the Sydney Morning Herald, "Two of them went on and the scales said they were 700 grams overweight so they had to go and sweat it off.

"But when they got back it then said they were two kilos heavier than before! I thought last year when I witnessed a bloke in Victoria win a fight with one arm I had seen it all, but this even tops that."

The weigh-in debacle is just the latest in a series of fiascos that have bedevilled the games. So far, the only element of the organisation that has failed to attract utter derision is the fielding of teams of crack security monkeys to stop local primates attacking the competitors. ®