John Joe ready to do it the hard way again
The Mullingar man, who boxes out of the St. Michael’s club in Athy, has always had to do it the hard way. In the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics he missed out on qualification at the world championships in Chicago but bounced back to qualify in style in Athens.
In Beijing, he turned in a masterclass to beat Guyala Kate from Hungary, the man who had beaten him in the quarter-finals at the world championships. He beat him decisively, 9-5, in a thriller before losing out on countback to Filix Diaz (Dominican Republic) in a fight that should have gone his way. After that he went to the European championships in Liverpool where he won a bronze medal but then found himself struggling with the weight in 2009.
