Boxers fight for recognition on way to Athens

THE Irish boxers – all with their sights on Olympic qualification - arrived in Cork last evening for the Multi-Nations Tournament at the Rochestown Park Hotel tonight (7.30 pm), hoping for some sort of recognition for their achievements over the past year.

Billy Walsh, seven times national senior champion and now Head Coach for the High Performance Team Ireland, is dumbfounded at the lack of media coverage in this country for a sport that has the best record in the Olympics down the years.

“Apart from the Irish Examiner and Gerry Callan, we find it practically impossible to get any publicity,” he said. “Those guys have been winning gold and silver medals all over the place. The BBC even came to cover our training camp but RTÉ have been ignoring us.