It was one of boxing's great mysteries in 2014.
How could two timekeepers at Australian middleweight Daniel Geale's world title fight against champion Gennady Golovkin at Madison Square Garden mistakenly add an extra minute to the opening round?
A crucial fourth minute in which Geale suffered a cut.
By the third round of July's bout, the battered Tasmanian-born fighter had succumbed by technical knockout to the power-hitting fighter from Kazakhstan.
After an investigation, the New York State Athletic Commission suspended timekeeper Catherine Paolillo and backup timekeeper Clarence McMillan for six months, ESPN reported on Tuesday.
Paolillo was having an animated conversation instead of performing her duties, according to the commission.
"It is very clear from the evidence that (Paolillo) permitted the round to run an extra minute because she allowed herself to be distracted," the commission wrote in Monday's ruling.
"Most significant is the evidence showing that, rather than watching the clock as she should, she engaged in an animated conversation with other persons which distracted her from her duties."
The fight against the unbeaten, knockout king Golovkin, was the biggest of Geale's career.
Golovkin was defending his World Boxing Association and International Boxing Organisation belts.
"It is of some significance that the fighter who eventually lost the bout was cut at the end of the extra, improper minute," the ruling states.
"While the tribunal cannot speculate on what the result of the fight would have been without that cut, that it occurred does establish that harm was done by the failure of the respondent to fulfil her duties properly."
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