Dream come true for Barnes
Barnes led a parade of Irish boxers on to the podium throughout an astonishing afternoon – only the host nation, Russia, bettered the medal haul – and, for the first time since 1991 when Paul Griffin won featherweight gold, Amhrán na bhFiann, was played at the European championships.
Fittingly it was Barnes, who famously declared bronze medals were only for losers after he was beaten 15-0 by the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world at the time, Shiming Zou, in Beijing, who claimed Ireland’s sixth gold medal at this level.
And he did it with a controlled performance against up-and-coming Azerbaijani, Elvin Mamishade.
The solitary point on the screen at the end of the first round, however, did not do justice to the punches thrown by the 23 year old Olympic bronze medallist from Belfast, but he remained ice cool, added two more in the third and shared the last round 1-1 – Mamishade’s point coming in the dying seconds – for a memorable victory.
“I’m a European champion and that’s something I have dreamed about all my life,” Barnes said. “I’m a champion. I trained really hard for this over the past few weeks and I am so happy it worked out so well.
“I had sparred the guy in the Ukraine but you don’t learn everything from a spar. He was not putting it all in and neither was I.
“I watched him in his other fights, he would get points and move a way. Today I would close him down and catch him. I could tell in the last round he was not really attacking and I was catching him with the shots.”
Darren O’Neill was a point behind, 2-1, after the first round of the middleweight final but one would have to wonder where the punches were coming from when the hometown favourite, Artem Chebotarev, began to stack up the points midway through the second.
O’Neill, who might be winning All-Ireland hurling medals for Kilkenny if he had not made boxing his No 1 sport, held his own and actually tied the fight 4-4 midway through the round before the Russian pulled away to win the round 6-3.
There might have been some dubious scores in the third – the Russian got two points from one punch at one point – but Chebotarev was brilliant when he turned on the style and if the 16-7 verdict was a bit far fetched, there was no doubting the Russian’s class.
“Silver is great and I know I will appreciate it more when I get back home but right now it is heartbreaking because I went in there today to win the gold,” the Paulstown southpaw said.
“It did not work out. It was always going to be difficult because he was a hometown favourite and maybe there were one or two dodgy scores. But, look, I was beaten on the day.”
“The atmosphere was something else in there. Unfortunately the Russian atmosphere drove him on. I have no complaints about my own performance because I gave it all I could on the day. I will go away after this, I’ll refocus and I’ll be back again.”
Billy Walsh, who was captain of the Irish team when Paul Griffin won Ireland’s last European gold medal in Gothenburg in 1991, was full of praise for the whole team’s performance.
“You could not ask any more from Darren (O’Neill), he said. “He gave it everything he had. The scores did not really reflect the true nature of the fight.
“Earlier in the week we saw Darren win what was the best fight of this tournament and obviously this was the best fight of the day. It was and outstanding battle and I thought it was way closer than the margin would suggest. But you are fighting a hometown boy in his hometown so you can’t ask for any more.
“We always ask our boxers to leave everything in the ring and, my God, this Kilkenny man left it all there today.
“Tactically, Paddy Barnes was superb today. We always analyse our opponents and we did it here and then Paddy stuck to the game plan to the letter. He was absolutely brilliant, totally in control and did not give away a score until the end when he was well ahead. It was a fantastic achievement.”
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