Walker ‘should have stayed’

Press, 24 September 1988, Page 28

Walker ‘should have stayed’

Kevin Barry, New Zealand’s controversial boxing silver medallist at the Los Angeles Olympics, believes Keith Walker, the New Zealand referee who was at the centre of a brawl in the ring in Seoul on Thursday, should not have come home. “I definitely think it was not a good thing to do,” Barry said of Mr Walker’s decision to return to New Zealand immediately after the brawl. Barry, who saw the incident on television, acknowledges that the fight, between the South Korean, Byun Jong-il, and the Bulgarian, Alexander Hristov, was a difficult bout to referee, “but I can’t judge on Keith’s decisions be-

cause we didn’t see much of the fight.” “I honestly believe though, that he should have stuck it out. When competitors get licked they don’t just pack up and go home. “He said his life was in danger, well, when we were in L.A. we could have said our lives were in danger. We got things thrown at us but it was only a two-minute thing.” Barry, who runs a gymnasium, has a good word on Walker. “He has refereed lots of my boys. He is highly thought of in New Zealand. But he should have been a proud Kiwi, knowing he’s done a good job, and stand up there and say bugger you lot.”