Andrade blames judges after U.S. flop

By Patrick Vignal

BEIJING (Reuters) - World welterweight champion Demetrius Andrade blamed the judges after sealing the U.S. team's worst ever Olympic boxing performance on Sunday.

Andrade lost 11-9 to South Korea's Kim Jungjoo in his quarter-final bout, leaving the Americans with just one boxer, heavyweight Deontay Wilder, who struggled to beat Morocco's Mohammed Arjaoui on countback.

The situation is a major embarrassment for a country who have won a record 48 Olympic boxing golds and had never left Games with fewer than two medals.

"I was landing a lot of punches but the judges were not giving them to me," a distraught Andrade told reporters.

"It's tough for the kids back home who want to take up boxing because if they come to the Olympics to be treated like this, there's no point in coming at all," he added.

The Americans have produced such great Olympic champions as Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard but have been going through lean years.

After winning just one gold medal from the past two Games, by light-heavyweight Andre Ward four years ago in Athens, they came to Beijing with nine boxers in a mission to redeem themselves.

It all started in traumatic fashion with bantamweight Gary Russell Jr. pulling out even before the draw after collapsing while struggling to make his weight.

Everything kept going wrong after that with the two world champions in the squad, flyweight Rau'shee Warren and Andrade, both failing to make it to the medal bouts.

One of the U.S. team's problems is their best boxers are impatient to turn professional and rarely stay in the amateur ranks long enough to master their craft.

Another is a struggle by their boxers to come to terms with the electronic scoring machine introduced after a judging scandal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

(Editing by Keith Weir)