Walsh has Olympic dream for his golden generation

Lost nowadays in all the enduring hype about Ronnie Delany’s 1500m gold medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne is the fact Ireland came back from Australia with four other medals; Fred Tiedt (silver), Johnny Caldwell, Fred Gilroy and Anthony Byrne (all bronze) — all in boxing.

The golden age, then? Not necessarily so, says current High Performance Team coach Billy Walsh.

“Jimmy Magee, a great advocate for boxing in this country, was asked that question. ‘No’, he said. ‘The golden age of Irish boxing is now’. And he’s right. We’ve never had so many world champions — we won seven world titles in the last few years, we’ve won four Europeans, we’ve won three Olympic medals.