Skip to main content
The punch-up in the press room
JUST once in a while, the dull ritual that is a press conference unexpectedly becomes the story, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
Algeria's Imane Khelif helps Hungary's Anna Hamori out of the ring after their women's 66kg quarterfinal boxing match at the 2024 Summer Olympics, August 3, 2024, in Paris, France

FOR sports reporters (and likely most other beats, too), the press conference is a tedious ritual during which we are fed pat answers to often equally banal questions. 

If you have a really good question, you’d rather hold it back, because otherwise all of your colleagues are privy to the answer. No scoop there.

Donate to the Fighting Fund
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Angie Zelter
Features / 16 April 2025
16 April 2025
Activist Angie Zelter has been arrested more than a hundred times. She’s not stopping now, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
LABOUR’S LOST HERO: Tony Benn in Grosvenor Square, London,
Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
Yanis Varoufakis and Jeremy Corbyn laid out a roadmap for peace, justice and equality as they celebrated the legacy of inspirational socialist Tony Benn, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Pro-Palestinian protesters demanding the release of Columbia
Features / 3 April 2025
3 April 2025
Such betrayals to the authorities are strikingly at odds with the history of Jewish persecution, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Us President Donald Trump waves to supporters from his limou
Features / 1 April 2025
1 April 2025
Bizarrely, Trump’s latest attacks now include the National Zoo, but his real and racist agenda is to strip everything black from the country’s cultural institutions, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Similar stories
Nick Ball (left) defending his Featherweight WBA title again
Los Angeles Olympics / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Algeria's Imane Khelif (left) fights Italy's Angela Carini i
Opinion / 6 August 2024
6 August 2024
The condemnation of ‘masculine’ female athletes is part of a wider persecution of women who don’t fit the norms of femininity, argues LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Ground staff paint lines on Court 4 in front of the Clubhous
Men’s Tennis / 18 June 2024
18 June 2024
British tennis reporter, Richard Evans, will be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame this July, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER