Boxers: At home,not alone

India tripled their boxing gold haul from Melbourne four years before.

Kazakhstan were the clear winners at the end of the 2013 Boxing World Championships in Astana,with four gold,two silver and two bronze. All but two of their contingent won a medal. At the 2011 World Championships in Azerbeijan,the Kazakhs had finished with two silver and as many bronze while at the 2012 London Olympics they won a gold,a silver and a bronze. The Kazakhs improved haul at home shouldnt have come as a surprise to anyone.

While no one is trying to suggest anything underhanded Kazakhstan have long been an amateur boxing powerhouse these figures establish an accepted rule: host countries tend to win more medals and tallies tend to drop when you travel. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics,China added two gold and a silver to their solitary bronze from Athens. India too have benefited. The hosts of the 2010 Commonwealth Games tripled their boxing gold haul from Melbourne four years before. Australia,who won an unprecedented two gold in 2006,returned empty-handed from Delhi. Great Britain,who had the most medals three gold,a silver and a bronze in London,returned from Astana with only two bronze (One each for England and Wales).

Studies have proved that home advantage exists. This isnt just a case of host-country competitors not having travel fatigue or being familiar with playing conditions. Less obvious in sports such as weightlifting and athletics,where the winner is determined by objective factors and minimal referee interference,it has tremendous impact in sports featuring subjective judging such as gymnastics and boxing. Boxing has had its share of refereeing scandals,most notoriously at the 1988 Seoul Olympics,when wined and dined judges handed South Koreas Park Si-Hun a shock gold at the expense of the USAs Roy Jones.

Such blatant bribery may no longer take place. But,as research has proved,crowd behaviour subconsciously affects not just players but officials as well. In boxing where a referees judgement is crucial,especially in close bouts this could make the difference between a win and a loss. Astana threw up at least one possible instance of this. In the bantamweight quarterfinals,Olympic champion Robeisy Ramirez of Cuba lost 0-3 to homeboy Keirat Yeraliev; the bout looked much closer than the scoreline suggested.

Jonathan is a senior correspondent based in New Delhi

jonathan.selvaraj@expressindia.com