No effort spared as Irish boxers tuned in for glory

THE Irish boxers at the World Championships in Chicago have all been issued with new iPods and will be able to watch some of their best performances to the background of their favourite music as part of their preparations.

“We have introduced imagery to the preparation of our boxers,” High Performance director Gary Keegan said. “We have drawn on the boxers’ very best performances, and put them to their favourite music for them to watch so that they can watch and enjoy the key punches, the key feints and the key moves while relaxing to their favourite tunes.”

It is just one of a number of innovations introduced to a high performance strategy. In addition, the Irish boxers will now be able to analyse every move, punch and relevant piece of information about an opponent as the World Championships progress here in Chicago.

Yesterday morning performance analyst Alan Swanton from the NCTC in Limerick, had an hour-long meeting with Gary Keegan and his staff — head coach Billy Walsh and assistant coaches Zaur Antia and Jim Moore — in the Palmer House Hilton, where the Irish team is based with some of the leading powers in world boxing.

“It took us two-and-a-half years to decide what we wanted,” Keegan pointed out. “Obviously we had to begin with the physical side of things, then psychology and then nutrition.

“Once those people were in place, we looked at performance analysis, which is another vital part of a boxer’s preparation.

“Take Matvey Kofohov, for example. We know he is a southpaw with a big left hand. From the analysis of his performance, however, we will be able to determine how many times he throws the left, when he throws it, how many times he feints before he throws it, how many times he feints before he attacks — so that our boxer, should they meet, will be ready. And similarly, we can analyse the performances of our own boxers.”

However, the priority for the High Performance team was physical preparation — and they found the ideal strength and conditioning expert in John Cleary, who is available to them three days a week and for all their training camps.

He also prepares all the tests and evaluates every boxer in the system. If a boxer loses here he will be given two days to get over losing and then go straight into preparing for the Olympic qualifying tournaments next year.

Sharon Madigan from Belfast, the nutritionist, has also been crucial and the boxers have been singing the praises of psychologist Gerry Hussey from Galway. Medical back-up is provided by Dr Jim Ryan and physiotherapist Scott Murphy.

“But I have to hand it to our coaches,” Keegan said. “They have been working extremely hard.

“I can honestly say we could not have done more in the preparation of the boxers and we all get a sense of pride when we see Olympic champions and world champions looking for spars with our lads.

“Yesterday we watched the Olympic champion take the Moldovan apart and when Darren Sutherland sparred the Moldovan, the Olympic champion came to us for a spar with Darren. It is rewarding when Kazakhstan, the third most powerful boxing nation in the world, comes to us looking for spars.

“But we have done everything right. It was a good decision to come out here on October 16 as the lads have recovered from the trip and settled in — Dr Giles Warrington mapped out all that for us.

“But while we have introduced all those innovations we have not abandoned the basics of the sport. We have just added in all those other little bits.”