LONDON - An Angolan boxing coach was deemed a "plonker" by the head of the country's Olympic team after failing to bring their only fighter to a weigh-in led to his disqualification in a sea of tears.

Heavyweight Tumba Silva, 26, a protege of former world champion Chris Eubank's Angolan academy, was disqualified from his first round bout against 2008 Olympic silver medalist Clemente Russo of Italy on Wednesday after he missed the mandatory morning weigh-in.

"That plonker of a coach, for he has no other name, failed to go to the technical meeting or the athlete's weigh-in, between eight and nine in the morning," Antonio Monteiro, head of the Angolan Olympic team, told Portuguese sports daily A Bola on Thursday.

"The athlete was inconsolable, he cried like a child. The coach was such a plonker that I had to give the athlete the news myself. He cried so much that I myself could not speak.

"Tumba had put practically his whole life into this fight. Win or lose, he wanted this to be a mark for him."  - Reuters