Keegan plans to box clever

GARY Keegan was looking for a way to explain to his boxers that improvement would be gradual, not sudden. He hit on a simple visual aid.

Producing a bowl of cornflakes, Keegan asked if anyone would eat them by tipping the bowl into their mouths, or one spoonful at a time.

“Kenny Egan mightn’t use the spoon,” one wit tried, but Keegan’s point was made.

The high performance director of the Irish Institute of Sport made his name with the Irish boxers, who had the most successful conversion rate of boxer-per-medals at the Beijing Olympics. He warns about expectations ahead of the London Games in 2012.

“We’re still a developing nation in high performance sport, we’re about eight years old. Russia is about sixty, Australia twenty-odd.

“I’m talking about investment in high-performance systems, institutes of sport and so on. We’re pretty new to that and the work the Irish Sports Council has been doing has been to professionalise the structures around athletes. It’s finding the fit between a good professional and someone who can build a system as well as training athletes.”

It’s no accident that Keegan name-checks Russia. He points out that they taught the Cubans everything they know about boxing, and they have the systems and processes in place. When Keegan was involved with the Irish boxers, they often travelled to Russia to observe their approach.

“Building systems is a long-term process and you don’t see the yield immediately. If you chase results we ignore the system. We might have the odd result but that’s not good enough for our athletes. They deserve to have high performance people around them and I believe we can do that.

Keegan turns around the supposed advantage of having the 2012 Olympic Games in London: “It’s next door and people are saying it’s a home games. I don’t see it that way.

“There are advantages – Irish people can go and support the athletes, which is critical, but outside that the challenge is to see these as games like any other – going out to perform.

“Next year will be critical in terms of looking at the performance standards rather than qualification numbers. The quality of our athletes performances in 2011 will be a good indicator of where we stand, potentially, regarding podiums.”

Boxing is always regarded as a live medal option, and much of that is down to the proactive approach of the coaches. For instance, rather than bemoan judging inconsistencies, they acted.

“What we felt was that if something isn’t controllable, is it influenceable? Though we didn’t switch our focus, we put a bit of effort into it. We made a submission to the European Coaching Commission on some changes that needed to be made to allow for fairer, more objective process in the judging system.

“And in fairness, the world body made those changes. The judging system is a more level playing field. We’re confident it’s much improved, but focusing on it takes your mind off what it should be focused on.”

For instance, focusing on how your preparation should be pitched. Keegan points out that the Russians don’t always get it right. Their boxers continued training for two days more after the Irish boxers stopped in the run-up to Beijing, and their fighters were jaded in the games as a result.

“Our aim was to simulate the performance environment within the training environment; the two Ps, performance and preparation were absolutely equal and connected.

“You need to understand the competition stimulus and try to replicate it in your training process. That doesn’t happen overnight. it’s a long process. There are tiny steps. Incremental gains.

“But if you’re evaluating your journey you can see you’re closer to your goal. You may not have achieved it this time but you can see you’re closer to it. That builds confidence in the boxer, the coach, the manager, and they see it’s a journey, not a destination. That’s where the riches lie – in the journey.

“When we got it right we were mindful of being focused on the moment – the here and now – and learning from that. Again, that wasn’t done overnight, but once we learned to break it down and analyse one step at a time and digest it, then you could take another step.”

Keegan has had offers from overseas but he’s remained in Ireland: “I believe in Irish people, in Irish potential. We can achieve a lot more but we have to make the hard yards, the hard decisions.

“We’ve got a lot of people who are isolated – in Irish society generally, not just in sport – people who need support, and if they knew and could be supported by the people who are in a similar situation, we’d be far better off.

“The synergies that would be generated in business, in society, by working with each other would be massively beneficial.”

He has his own coaching and management heroes – people like Aer Arann’s Pádraig O Ceidigh, Kilkenny’s Brian Cody and Irish boxing coach Billy Walsh. He’s always looking for mentors.

And outlets. Lately the Russians banned him from their boxing camps. Why? They realised he was learning too much altogether.