Hoping a golden opportunity has not been missed
And finally, some white smoke.
If it seems like a lifetime ago since Katie Taylor defeated Russia’s Sofya Ochigava in London’s ExCel Arena, that’s because it pretty much is. In sporting terms, anyway. Consider for a moment just some of the things we have witnessed in the time since:
* Six All-Ireland finals.
* 468 holes of unforgettable Ryder Cup golf.
* Six rounds of PRO12 and the opening jousts in the Heineken Cup.
* The entire Rugby Championship.
* Sligo Rovers’ first league title in 35 years.
* 69 Premier League games.
* Four Republic of Ireland games.
* Two rounds of Uefa’s Champions League.
Apologies if we have missed a few major events here and there, but you get the idea. The rest of the world continued to turn and yet for over two months our most successful Olympian was training away in limbo in Bray. Would she turn pro? Would she remain amateur? Why were we even having this conversation in October? Seriously, how long does it take for a few contracts to be drawn up?
Twice in recent weeks, she had spoken to reporters at commercial events and on both occasions she clearly stated her burning ambition to remain amateur and defend her title at the Rio Games in 2016. Not for Katie the usual smoke and mirrors.
This was not some Premier League footballer hankering after a raise to his already monstrous salary. This was a humble, hugely talented Olympic champion whose one ambition in sport is to represent her country and yet weeks and months passed without a hint of an end line being reached.
Sure, there were details to be nailed down, as with any contracts. The haziness over how much money will be made available to the Irish Sports Council in the Budget and how much cash our ‘podium’ athletes will be entitled to can’t help, but the stumbling block here was quite clearly the Irish Amateur Boxing Association.
Everyone admitted as much. Apart, of course, from the IABA themselves. The IABA hardly said a dicky bird at all and you heard all sorts of things in the vacuum that created. Things like how some high-up in the association have had their noses put out by the success of the High Performance Unit and the like.
What’s apparent is that Ireland’s high performance people have achieved what they have on European, World and Olympic stages almost in spite of the shoddy structures that permeate much of the sport and, while Taylor has now been secured, the sense remains of a golden opportunity already lost.
Had the IABA been thinking straight, they would have been able to declare the 2012 Games an unreserved success through a select number of high-profile commercial deals long before Taylor, John Joe Nevin, Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan secured their places in the national bosom.
Think of the package they could have offered to the marketplace. What other Irish sport could have gone to a leading company operating on this island and all but guaranteed them that at least one of their athletes would be standing on a podium in London with the eyes of the world looking on? It’s not as if it would have been a brainwave. Like the IABA, the British Amateur Boxing Association doesn’t have much in the way of a commercial portfolio to boast of but it announced back in May — two months before the Games — that they were going to do something about that in a clear case of late being better than never.
Five sponsorship categories were identified: Team GB boxing title sponsor, women’s team partner, community sport partner, travel partner and power partner while a recruitment process was initiated to hire a commercial director who would tap into what would prove to a hugely successful home Games for the association inside the ropes.
Derek Mapp, the BABA’s executive chairman, said that boxing offered “real medal potential, guaranteed TV exposure and grassroots links that deliver enormous social benefits often in deprived communities. All of these help to differentiate boxing from other Olympic sports and give it the potential to generate huge interest in the build-up 2012 and at the games.”
Cut and paste that quote and it would slide seamlessly into any boardroom presentation the IABA might have made but the really annoying thing is that, had such privately sourced income been secured prior to London, we would hardly have been fretting over a few euro and cent here and there and, by extension, the futures of our most successful Olympian.
Now, anyone know what the story is with Billy Walsh and Zaur Antia?
Contact: brendan.obrien@examiner.ie Twitter: @rackob
