Gold medals crowning touch for Olympic trio

THREE gold medals put the perfect finishing touch to what was a remarkable week for Irish boxing at the Olympic qualifying tournament here on Saturday, with John Joe Joyce, Darren Sutherland and Ken Egan not only qualifying for Beijing, but winning their respective divisions.

On an afternoon when five of the 11 finals fell by the wayside as a result of boxers packing their bags after achieving their qualification targets, it was left to the three Irishmen to thrill those in attendance.

John Joe Joyce came off a slow start to share the first round of his light welterweight showdown with Egidijdus Kavaliauskas of Lithuania, but the contest went no further when Kavaliauskas failed to come out for the second.

“I was just getting warmed up but I can’t say I was disappointed or anything like that,” the 20-year-old Mullingar man said afterwards. “I knew all week that he had a problem with his elbow. He broke it in the semi-finals at the qualifying tournament in Pescara.

“I became friendly with him out there and we were talking here all week. I suspected there might be something wrong and I thought he might not box the final at all.”

Darren Sutherland was ruthless in his approach to the middleweight final against Frenchman Jean-Michael Raymond, hunting him down in the first round, catching him with some big shots to the head and body and then, after winning the round 2-1, giving him two standing counts with a big right to the head in the second, which he won 8-2. When the referee called them out for the third, Raymond had already taken his gloves off.

“I wanted to finish this tournament on a high — I wanted to just get in and see if I could get another stoppage in,” said Sutherland who will be back at DCU tomorrow preparing for his exams. “I thought that if I hit him a good shot his corner would pull him out — they would not risk getting him hurt — and it also would put out a message when you look back on the result, you would see that I finished very strongly and that I did not ease up. I was not happy just to qualify — I like to win. I wanted to finish what I started.

“It has been one of the best ever tournaments for me. The whole experience, the morale and everything was brilliant and I had five fights — none of them were close — I dominated every fight, had two stoppages and one of the scores — 38-17 — is such a high score, despite the fact that there were some scores I felt I got but were not registered. It has been brilliant.

“After Chicago I had doubts. But losing in Chicago turned out to be a blessing in disguise. If I had qualified there I would not have addressed certain issues. Now 2008 has been like the start of a whole new era for me — the start of something big. I am just going to keep going from strength to strength.

“I was not enjoying my boxing last year. Now I have rediscovered the joy of boxing — what made me lace up a pair of gloves in the first place. We now have to sit down and reassess the whole thing and see what my goal will be in the Olympics.

“It’s fairly common knowledge that after Beijing, my future is in the pros and the fact that I am going to the Olympics will make me a very saleable commodity.”

But while everything might start moving quite fast, Sutherland said he does not want to rush into anything, saying he intends to complete his studies. He now has to cram 12 weeks of study into three in preparation for his examinations at DCU. On Saturday morning in Athens he sat down with one of his lecturers, Dr Giles Warrington to plan his programme.

“Giles is not just a lecturer,” he said. “He is my mentor and my friend. I am very lucky to have him because I find it easy to relate to him. DCU have been very good to me in that they have allowed me to plan my studies around my boxing.”

Kenneth Egan’s middleweight final was one of the highlights of the afternoon featuring two elusive southpaws.

After an even first round (3-3) Egan departed from his usual gameplan to hunt his man down and then pick him off with pinpoint right jabs to the body that were punctuated by a couple of big left hooks to the head.

He won the second round 3-2 and the third 4-3 with the Swede forced to come forward to be picked off.

“The occasion did not feel as big today,” Egan admitted. “Yesterday I was totally focused. I knew he was a bit of a swinger because I boxed him and beat him four years ago.”

Ireland will now have five boxers in action at the Olympic Games in Beijing next August with Joyce, Sutherland and Egan joining light flyweight, Paddy Barnes, who qualified at the world championships in Chicago last year and Mullingar teenager, John Joe Nevin, who qualified in Pescara, just four weeks after winning his first senior title.