BOXING:THE ATTITUDE in the Katie Taylor camp was still one of dismay yesterday, as she, her father Peter and his fellow coach Pat Ryan travelled back from Bulgaria where she was beaten in the lightweight final in the Strandja Multi-Nations.

The three-time world champion is not invincible, the defeat in Pazardjik was her seventh in 115 bouts and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but the manner of Denica Eliseeva’s 5-1 victory soured the trip for Irish camp.

Put simply, nearly everybody, even the referee and ringside announcer, thought the Bray woman had won yet another final. The judges, however, awarded the bout to the Bulgarian, who herself apologised to Taylor afterwards.

It was at least the second time the Bulgarian was forced into such a gesture during the week, after she sought out beaten semi-finalist Ingrid Egner following the 1-0 win that denied the Norwegian a crack at Ireland’s World, European and EU champion and 2010 AIBA World boxer of the year.

“After the match she came up to me, like telling (sic) she’s sorry,” Egner wrote on her website. “It’s not her fault. In these situations you cannot blame the boxers.”

Taylor’s camp has been quick to exonerate Eliseeva, too, but there remains bemusement as to how the final could have been called the way it was.

“Katie’s performance, as far as we’re concerned, was top class,” said Ryan yesterday. “It was probably the best performance out of three contests she had out here. At the end of the day, the referee in the ring raised Katie’s hand without any hesitation whatsoever and the announcer announced Katie the winner. And we lost 5-1.

“However, I do believe the fact that her opponent Denica came to the dressingroom to apologise for the outcome bears testament to what happened in the ring and also to the calibre of opponent she was boxing in terms of sportsmanship.”

Ryan took the call when Peter Taylor handed him the phone, for fear of facing accusations of being a disgruntled father rather than merely a baffled coach. All three have moved on but Ryan does expect repercussions.

This wasn’t a hometown decision, he insists. There were judges from Sweden, France, Norway and Russia ringside and Taylor wasn’t the only one who walked away feeling short-changed.

“At the moment, there’s confusion as to what denotes a score and a hit. It takes three judges to come in and do it. Unfortunately for some reason or another they never scored body shots.

“The scoring area includes the body and when you box you look at the target and hit the target, whether it’s body or head. For some strange reason, they never scored body shots. Some of the judges never pressed the button at all.”

The controversy was not lost on the International Amateur Boxing Association’s (AIBA) “technical delegate”, who was “very disappointed with the outcome of the contest”. “We spoke to him briefly and it’s in his hands,” added Ryan. “We’ll allow that process to proceed in the interests of fairness and let them deal with it in an official manner.”

Regardless of the outcome, it was a worthwhile exercise. The tournament featured the three women’s Olympic weights – flyweight, lightweight and middleweight – and gave Taylor more time in the ring.

“We won’t be spending too much time on this loss because we’ve analysed it and we’ve closed the book on it at this stage, because we know what happened and that’s it,” said Ryan.

Taylor will be in the ring again in six weeks time, hoping to put things right at the Feliks Stamm tournament in Warsaw.