Egan impresses Harrington

Three-time major winner Padraig Harrington has praised the performance of Ireland’s Olympic boxing medallist Kenny Egan.

Harrington, in New Jersey preparing for his first tournament since winning the US PGA Championship earlier this month, was reacting to news Egan had booked his place in the boxing semi-finals in Beijing, guaranteeing Ireland at least a bronze medal.

Egan, who reached the last four with an 8-0 whitewash of Brazil’s Washington Silva at the Beijing Workers Gymnasium, had publicly thanked Harrington for his help and the golfer admitted he had spent a day with the boxer helping him mentally prepare for the Olympics.

And the golfer, preparing for The Barclays tournament at Ridgewood Country Club, said: “A couple of times in the past, athletes have come and asked for advice, Kenny being one of them.

“He came to my house, and basically was talking about how to peak, how to go to a big-time event and produce your best performance.

“He was obviously a very talented competitor himself and knew what to do, but was feeling that he was slightly under-achieving at the big events.

“He came and we had a chat. We had a good day to get together and I went through a few things, gave him a bit of advice, gave him a few books to read, and it’s good to see it’s paying off.”

Harrington, though, played down his contribution to the Olympic medal effort.

“I won’t take credit for it,” he continued.

“Any boxer, they put in incredible amounts of work. It’s nice that he’s saying these things, but one of the keys I put across to him at the time, and I’m sure some of this is driven by the media here, but one of the keys is his ability to do his own thing and be self-sufficient and concentrate on his own personal performance and not get distracted.

“I think he obviously is doing that, and it is a tremendous success.”

Harrington had one more piece of advice for Egan, who will fight Britain’s light-heavyweight rival Tony Jeffries in Friday’s semi-final.

He added: “I would suggest that he shouldn’t be thinking at this stage, there should be only one thought in his head, and that’s the semi-final bout and not get too drawn into how he’s done so far. There’s plenty more ahead.”