IRISH AMATEUR BLAST THEIR WAY TO 8 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Just three years ago, Ireland returned from the European Union Boxing Championships in Pecs, Hungary with a single medal, a bronze won by light-heavyweight Kenneth Egan. This medal was not to be sniffed at. At the previous two championships we'd also won just one medal, Egan winning gold in 2005 at Cagliari and Andy Lee taking a silver at Madrid in 2004.
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This, it seemed, was the way of the boxing world. It took exceptional individuals of the calibre of Egan and Lee to win EU medals at championships which were dominated by the traditionally powerful likes of Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, France and Italy.
Last week Ireland sent a team of nine boxers to the EU Championships in the Danish city of Odense. They will be returning with nine medals. I don't know if an Irish team in any sport has ever come back from a major championships with every member having won a medal but I doubt it. Three of those medals were gold, another three silver. Yesterday afternoon, David Oliver Joyce (Kildare), Darren O'Neill (Kilkenny) and heavyweight Con Sheehan (Tipperary) won gold; Declan Geraghty (Dublin), John Joe Nevin (Cavan) and Willie McLaughlin (Donegal) won silver; and Ireland were named as the team of the championships.
Irish amateur boxing has travelled some distance in the past three years and the past week is merely another dramatic illustration of the process by which we have become the European Cuba. Our nine medals put us top of the tree in Odense; England and Hungary were next best with eight and six. Our six finalists was also the best of the championships; England managed five, Germany and Hungary had four apiece. Not bad considering the relative size of the countries concerned.
There were some really good performances. Nevin, the young Mullingar man who made it to the Olympics while still in his teens, met the European bantamweight champion Luke Campbell of England and beat him 13-2 on points, a performance described as world-class by Irish coach Billy Walsh, a man not given to hype.
Flyweight Geraghty, from Dublin Docklands, won his quarter-final and semi-final bouts by a total of 31-1. Welterweight McLaughlin, from Illies in Donegal, achieved his big international breakthrough with a stoppage and two points wins on a combined 20-5 count. Neither man was previously regarded as among our main hopes for London 2012 but at the moment every major tournament sees someone new making their mark alongside proven international winners like O'Neill and Joyce.
Not the least heartening aspect of the weekend was the return to the ring of Egan who was edged out by a point in the light-heavyweight semi-final. Given what he's been through since the Olympics, the result was academic. Because it was Egan who carried a lone flag in the big tournaments for so long, giving the younger boxers something to aspire to. He was an example then and he can be an example now, showing his up-and-coming team-mates how a great boxer can be brought low by the scumbags who gravitate towards successful sportsmen.
Last week what mattered was that Egan came back. Coming back to his old self in the ring will be the next step. He'll do that too.
Do you want to know what kind of boxers we're turning out these days? Let me tell you the story of Joe Ward from Moate. Young Ward went to the recent World Junior (U17) Championships in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and found that the draw had pitted him against a boxer from Kazakhstan in the first round with a Russian, in all probability, awaiting him then. Once upon a time, this would have been curtains for an Irish boxer. The Kazakhs are one of the most powerful nations in amateur boxing while the Russians are numero uno (they would finish with nine medals, five of them gold, in Yerevan). Ward knuckled down to the task at hand by stopping the Kazakh in two rounds. The Russian was a more difficult proposition; it took Ward three rounds to stop him.
In the semi-final, Ward faced a fighter from Uzbekistan, the country which finished third in the medals table at the championships. He won that one on points, 12-2. His final opponent was Hayk Khachatryan from Armenia. The home nation finished second on the medals table and Khachatryan had beaten a Cuban in the semi-final. But he was just one more man who couldn't go the distance with the Westmeath man. He departed in three and the home town of TR Dallas had, as far as I know, its first ever world champion. There aren't many Irish sportsmen who have put together a series of performances like that on the international stage.
It was also a first for Irish boxing as we hadn't won a World Junior championship before. Last year Ray Moylett from Westport won our first ever World Youth, (U19), title. Great things are happening.
How have we become so good? One factor is undoubtedly the Irish Amateur Boxing Association's willingness to expose young boxers to the toughest of international competition. Ward, for example, had warmed up for Yerevan by winning gold in the Heydar Aliyev Cup in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. The IABA's excellent PRO Bernard O'Neill keeps a steady stream of emails flowing into our inboxes which tell a story of Irish boxers travelling all over the continent to take part in multi-national tournaments.
They don't always win these tournaments and most of them find them tough going when initially introduced. But they learn. And think of the effect it must have on guys from small clubs in small towns and villages, places like Ilies, Paulstown and Moate, to be given these opportunities. They are being brought around the world and faith is being shown in them. They are being trusted to be good enough to take on boxers from the most powerful nations.
Imagine the boost this gives to a kid who started boxing in a parish hall with the most basic of facilities when the height of his ambition might have been to win a few fights or perhaps a county title. Now they're being told that they can beat anyone from anywhere. These days they've begun to believe it. We are world class in amateur boxing in a way we are not in any other sport.
I've mentioned this story before. But good news is worth mentioning again and again and these boxers are the good news story of Irish sport.
Because, when the draws are made for the big championships and someone sees he's drawn an Irishman, he curses his luck.
It's something else, isn't it?
