He lost his semi final fight to Thomas Blumenfeld of Canada on Friday but Jessie Lartey also confirmed Ghana’s first medal of the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia on Friday.
The 25 year old suffered a controversial unanimous decision defeat but per game rules both himself and the other losing semi finalist, Luke McCormack will both go home with consolation bronze medal.
It comes as welcome relief to Team Ghana who thus secures an only medal so far in all disciplines with barely two days to the closing ceremony of the Games featuring 71 Commonwealth nations, but Lartey who was participating in his third Commonwealth Games was adamant he had done enough to earn victory.
“It’s a very disappointing verdict because I thought I did enough to win, I was in total control and I could see my opponent did not know what was happening to him. To me I won this fight convincingly so for the judges to rule it this way, it’s sad,” Lartey told Adacommunityonline.com at ringside just after the fight.
In unison with the boxer was Coach Ofori Asare, head trainer of the Black Bombers, Ghana’s national amateur team who saw six of the seven boxers he took to Gold Coast eliminated before the semi finals.
“This is what always happen at this big competitions and clearly everybody saw that we were robbed, Jessie was the man in charge throughout the fight and I didn’t see what Blumenfeld did to get this big decision,” Coach Asare lamented.
“It’s about time Ghanaian referees and judges also get certified to officiate at this big competitions because if you have you official also in there, they will respect his country which helps a lot. The country must take this seriously so that at the next Olympic Games we should have our own people also officiating fights,” the experienced AIBA coaches’ instructor added.
