Walsh content as Irish are ready to rumble
The squad broke camp in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, where all 10 Olympic hopefuls had been training alongside the host nation, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan for the previous two weeks. The full squad included the three boxers who qualified for London 2012 at last year’s world championships in Baku — Belfast flyweight Michael Conlan, Kilkenny middleweight, Darren O’Neill, and world bronze medallist, John Joe Nevin, who is still nursing a fractured jaw sustained in the World Series of Boxing. Conlan and O’Neill remained on in the Ukraine for a multi nations tournament.
The remaining seven are on a career-defining mission. Paddy Barnes, the most experienced member of the squad, competed in the Beijing Olympics after emerging from relative obscurity to secure qualification at the 2007 world championships in Chicago.
