Boxing clever for big stories

At the London Olympics last year I could see that John Joe Nevin didn’t want to do an interview after losing his gold medal bout.

I’d have known him from covering the boxing over the years and I could see from the body language — the towel over the head and so on — that he didn’t want to talk, but to his credit he wouldn’t pass me.

He said: ‘I’ve left the country down and I can hardly talk.’ I said: ‘You haven’t let the country down, you’ve won a silver medal.’