Boxers set a standard that some of our Olympic officials can’t match

FROM some of the early reports from Beijing it was beginning to look like we were going to have to be content that nobody drowned in the pool or got lost on the running track, but then the boxers came to the rescue. Sure we’re famous the world over for fighting.

Darren Sutherland and Paddy Barnes have secured bronze medals, while Kenny Egan is assured of at least a silver medal and will be going for gold in tomorrow’s final.

Back in 1956, we had six boxers in Melbourne among the 12 competitors who represented Ireland at to those Olympics. The government then contributed just £3,000 for the whole team. How much did the Government now pay towards sending the team to Beijing?

In 1956, Ronnie Delany became the first Irishman and just the seventh person to break the four-minute mile. That June a race was arranged against Brian Hewson of England at Lansdowne Road.

For the first time ever at an Irish track race, a photo-finish camera was set up. An estimated crowd of around 30,000 turned up. Hewson was leading coming to the line and Delaney threw himself at the tape and certainly breasted if first. The photo-finish clearly showed that the upper half of his body was ahead, but his legs were behind Hewson, who got the verdict.

Two weeks later Delaney was spiked while running in Paris and he was obviously not race fit for his rematch with Hewson in Lansdowne road almost six weeks later. There was another huge crowd, but Delaney bombed and there was no need for a camera. He finished about 100 yards behind Hewson.

He performed so badly that some officials opposed sending him to the Olympics. There were shades of Lansdowne Road again in Melbourne when Hewson was leading going into the final straight, but Delaney breezed by him to take the gold medal — the first and only gold medal that Ireland has won on the track since 1932.

The boxers came home from Melbourne with a silver and three bronze medals. That was the period when the judging in the boxing seemed to have more to do with politics than punching.

It was widely felt that Fred Tiedt was robbed of the gold medal and Freddie Gilroy was similarly denied a silver medal at least.

The current judging system may not be perfect, but it is transparent, and everybody can tell how the boxers are doing, even if they do not agree with the judges. There can be no question of the kind of surprise decisions that Tiedt and Gilroy suffered.

Irish boxers have been doing a great job in making the best out of the judging system. There is no doubt that the men in the corner are helping the boxer, in marked contrast with some of the other Irish officials.

There has been criticism of the selection of competitors who had no real hope of winning a medal. This media hype ignores the Olympic ideal which places more emphasis on competing that winning.

Reaching a final, like Roisín McGettigan and Alistair Cragg, or finishing seventh like Olive Loughnane, were real achievements, as were Paul Hession’s exploits. These should be recognised as such. Likewise, Eoin Rheinisch finishing fourth in the KI kayaking.

Derval O’Rourke deserved her place. Maybe she lacked raced fitness following her recent injury, but competing was only one way to get that fitness.

Remember, a significant number of officials opposed sending Delaney to Melbourne because of his performance after his injury during the summer of 1956. If they had had their way, we would be still waiting for our first gold medal on the track since 1932.

Radio Éireann had nobody at the Melbourne games, so did RTÉ really need the massive representation at Beijing? There seemed to be as many people from RTÉ as there were Irish competitors.

Are we going to be rewarded with a demand for a licence fee hike to pay for the extravagance of giving so many of the lads the paid holiday of a lifetime in China? Gary O’Toole was again brilliant in his swimming coverage.

He did not pull any punches in relation to the whole issue of drugs at the Olympics. No doubt many people share his scepticism about some of the athletes.

Usain Bolt may well be some kind of freak of nature in being the perfect sprinting specimen, but one tends to become very suspicious when a small little island produces seven sprinters to win five individual gold, three silver and a bronze medal at these games. They also took the gold medal in the men’s 4x100 relay in a world record time.

If they are clean, it would have been in their interest that their country should have demonstrated this by implementing a proper drug-testing regime.

Ben Johnson seemed phenomenal when he shattered the world record in winning the 100 metres 20 years ago in Seoul. Two days later he was exposed as using performance-enhancing drugs. Yet his victory was not nearly as impressive as Usain Bolt’s win, breaking the world record while slowing up.

Of course, we have made an absolute spectacle of ourselves in the equestrian arena again this week. Cian O’Connor lost the gold medal in Greece because his horse tested positive for a banned substance and Denis Lynch has made a similar mistake.

The equestrian team is probably the most costly of all, and questions must be asked about how this could happen not just once, but twice.

Hopefully, this was an honest mistake, but surely there are enough people supposedly helping out to ensure that it could not happen inadvertently.

WE already had the spectacle last week of Melanie Nocker having to stop in the middle of the 100 metres freestyle swimming race to adjust her goggles after they slipped. In her case she had to borrow a swimming cap because the Irish cap was deemed illegal under Olympic rules.

Instead of wearing the goggles inside her own cap, she had to wear them outside the borrowed cap where they slipped.

Keith Bewley, the head coach of Swim Ireland, blamed her for not tightening the goggles sufficiently. The same thing happened to Michael Phelps in the 200 metres butterfly. He certainly would not have won or broken the world record if he stopped to adjust his goggles.

Bewley acknowledged that Nocker was very nervous before the race. She had enough to think about without the added pressure of the controversy over the cap. It was shades of Sonia O’Sullivan in the tunnel at Atlanta all over again.

Nocker was unlikely to win a medal, but it should not have been too much to expect that officials with the team would ensure that the swimming cap was within the rules. Ultimately, of course, the buck stops with the competitors.

Denis Lynch missed out on the chance of a lifetime. He had already qualified for the final and had a realistic chance of an Olympic medal.

With all the officials being sent out with the teams, however, one would think, that if they were doing a proper job, he could not have applied a banned substance unwittingly. Surely, after what happened in Greece, it would not have been too much to double check all the medication being used on the horses.