Billy Walsh to keep Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan ‘busy’ ahead of Olympics

Irish head coach Billy Walsh is planning to keep Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan busy in quality tournaments ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games.

The pair returned home yesterday after securing places for Rio 2016 with Italia Thunder in the World Series of Boxing after claiming split and unanimous decisions away to Venezuela on Saturday.

Barnes won seven out of seven in the WSB to secure the one Olympic berth in the light-fly class and Conlan won five of his seven fights to finish in the top two in the bantam category.

“Paddy and Michael will have a well earned rest now,” said Walsh.

“The plan will be to keep them busy in quality competition. They’ve been travelling all over the world since January to qualify for Rio and they have achieved that against some of the best in the world.”

Seventeen Olympic places were up for grabs from the WSB Individual Ranking Series.

Now the attention turns to the 2015 World Elite Men’s Championships, the first Olympic qualifier for regular amateur boxing, in Qatar in October.

But Europe’s boxers will have to qualify for Doha through the inaugural European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan this summer.

Lightweight David Oliver Joyce and light-heavy Joe Ward, meanwhile, will be next up in AIBA Pro Boxing (APB).

Joyce meets Uzbek lightweight Hurshid Tojibaev in May and Ward is in against French light-heavy Mathieu Bauderlique in June. Both fights will be over eight rounds.

If the Irish duo win those bouts, their next contests will be for places at the 2016 Olympic Games and the APB lightweight and light-heavyweight finals.

Walsh, who was working Barnes and Conlan’s corners with John Conlan, father to Michael, in Venezuela, hailed the Belfast duo’s performances in the WSB this season.

“Their mindset was to win it out and qualify for the Olympics and they did that in a very tough and demanding competition, he said.

“They showed a tenacious effort to be successful. The qualifiers for the World Championships will be at the European Games. We don’t have an Irish (male) world champion. Jason Quigley, John Joe Nevin and Joe Ward came close. We have Joe and David Oliver out next month and in June in APB, and that will be tough.

“There are two Olympic places up for grabs there and Joe and David are well capable of winning.”