00:00He'd completely destroyed his opponent in all three rounds of the fight, so when the fight ended
00:04and as the crowd cheered his name, he raised his glove in early celebration.
00:09If he doesn't win the goal off this, there's something rotten in Korea.
00:12But when the fighters stood beside the referee for the official verdict,
00:16the referee raised the South Korean's hand.
00:22Three of the five judges had awarded Park Sheehan the Olympic gold medal and relegated Roy Jones
00:29Jr. to silver. Jones had landed almost three times as many punches. A separate judging panel even gave
00:35him the Val Barker trophy for the best boxer of the entire Olympics. But somehow he had the final
00:40taken away from him. And in the post-fight interview, Jones was clearly disappointed.
00:47But standing on top of the podium, Park wasn't enjoying his victory either. Everyone could feel
00:52that something sketchy was going on. People in the crowd booed and fans from his own country were
00:58heckling him. And deep down, his win felt empty. He knew Jones had beaten him. In the aftermath,
01:04there were allegations of bribery, favoritism, even racism. But an Olympic investigation apparently
01:09found no evidence to support them and the results stood. But despite his talk of potentially quitting,
01:15when Jones got home, his perception of everything that had occurred in Korea soon started to shift.
01:21Seeing such an injustice occur against their own country's athlete had ignited a level of support
01:26and admiration from his American fans that Jones had never felt before. And pretty soon,
01:31he came to see the stolen medal as a blessing. He used the injustice as fuel. He went on to
01:37win
01:37titles in four separate weight divisions. And all the while, back in Korea, the coverage of Jones'
01:43fights kept dragging Park's mind back to that fateful, terrible decision. Park had retired from
01:48competing straight after the games. But he could never truly escape the guilt that he felt for what had
01:54transpired. Park wished he'd just been awarded the silver. In 2021, he even tried to get the Olympic
02:00committee to retroactively change the results and reissue the medals, but they never did. So, 35 years
02:06after the fight, decades of humiliation and guilt eating away at him, Park decided he couldn't take it
02:12anymore. He took a flight to Jones' Florida gym and he finally made things right.
02:17After all these years, he finally went back home.