Olympic glory comes at a price, warns Walsh

Billy Walsh has confirmed he will take Ireland’s elite boxers to the 2016 Olympic Games but the Wexford coach has warned more funding is required to build on the successes of Beijing and London.

Walsh announced yesterday that he has agreed terms to sign on for the next four years with the Irish Amateur Boxing Association (IABA), bringing to an end a frustrating four months of negotiations and ending the prospect of being poached by rival nations.

Assistant coach, Zaur Antia, has also agreed terms with the IABA and the Irish Sports Council while Peter Taylor is believed to be on the verge of doing the same.

“Hopefully the whole crew will be there,” Walsh said, looking ahead to the next Games in Rio de Janeiro. “It’s a team around me. It all starts from there. Zaur and Pete Taylor, too, made a major contribution because Katie was with us at all the senior training camps as well.

“Peter made a major contribution to the team and Zaur is a cornerstone of what we do and how we’ve evolved over the last few years — and the coaches that come in at the weekend to work with the development squads.

“Without all that, there is no success. I’m lucky enough to be figure-heading it and driving it forward, but all of those people are key to it.”

Walsh’s news should be greeted with an air or relief, such is the success delivered in the ring in recent years, not just at two Olympic Games, but at a succession of European, World and various other championships.

However, medals and podiums continue to gloss over a high performance unit that is climbing heights via a frayed rope. Walsh was asked to reflect on the early days when his boxers slept on mattresses in the gym but, in a way, some things haven’t changed.

He spoke yesterday of the need to establish a training base away from the city centre, one with accommodation for his charges that would negate the drain in costs that comes with putting them up in hotels, and the green fields out at the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown spring to mind.

“Sometimes you need to have patience,” he explained. “Maybe one of my best virtues is patience. I look at the bigger picture and we’ll get there. Sometimes we don’t need the facilities. It’s about quality coaching, a quality system and quality culture that’s driven to be successful.

“If we have to train in a shed, we’ll do that but to make it better would be fantastic. I want to bring in the top nations. They want to come here to train but I’m embarrassed to bring them to Ireland because we don’t have the facilities to cater for them the way they cater for us.

“They all want to come here because we’re top of the pile and they want to see what we’re doing. We want to have them here too because our boxers are fed up travelling. They want to be at home. We don’t have that set-up yet but, please God, Abbottstown will get the go-ahead and they’ll look at us favourably.”

Walsh has moulded the high performance unit into a slick, self-motivating group but he has again highlighted the need to establish regional centres of excellence in order to harness the country’s younger talent. Do that, he believes, and Ireland could be boxing’s world leader.

“We are putting plans together but we are a bit late in doing that — the strategy for the next four years. It does take some finance. If you look at the Brits and what they have achieved, their boxing team, cycling, sailing and swimming, we are in the ha’penny place. We need funding.”

No doubt, all of that was taken into place yesterday when Walsh and Peter Taylor shared the honour of being named Philips Sports Manager of the Year. It was the first time in the event’s 30-year history that boxing has provided the winner.

Other nominees were Donegal’s Jim McGuinness, Kilkenny’s Brian Cody, Ian Barraclough who guided Sligo to the Airtricity League title and Michael Bannon, coach of Rory McIlroy.