Newly dehydrated opponents arises for Pacquiao

NEW DELHI – A faulty set of scales has created chaos at weigh-ins before the boxing competitions at the Commonwealth Games, which are set to begin on Tuesday. Several competitors were told they were as much as two kilos overweight, sparking panicked efforts to shed pounds. Some boxers began sprinting around the athletes’ village in 30 C temperatures. Others jumped into the sauna. Many returned to the scales and found that things had gotten worse. Two Australian boxers were initially shown to be 700 grams overweight. After a frantic workout, they were reweighed – and found to be two kilograms overweight. “There was boxers everywhere running,” Australian team captain Luke Woods said. “It was crazy.” “(New Zealand boxer) Nathan McEwen had tried a couple of scales yesterday and thought they weren't right, so we almost expected it. They hadn't been calibrated,” Kiwi team boss Billy Meehan told the New Zealand Herald. “I thought last year when I witnessed a bloke in Victoria win a fight with one arm I'd seen it all, but this even tops that,” an Aussie team coach, Don Abnett, said. “Boxers all over the world, they drop four or five kilos of their natural weight just to make the division and they are already dehydrated and haven't eaten or drunk in 24 hours,” Woods said. “When they are told they have to lose another kilo on top of that, it is like trying to get blood from a stone and very damaging for the body and puts us at risk.” After several complaints, venue officials were convinced to check the scales by testing a 50-kg weight. The scales showed it weighing 51.4 kg. All the Monday weigh-ins were voided. Competitors are due to be retested on Tuesday, before the start of matches. “It is ridiculous, and now we have boys who have lost too much weight, which is not good,” Australia’s Abnett complained. “It is a farce, but there is not a lot more we can do.”