“If I threw one more punch...one more jab” - Lee’s Athens lament

ANDY LEE spent Saturday night in an Athens hospital, a lonely end to his Olympic dream but an environment in which he could come to terms with his devastating loss to Cameroon’s Hassan Ndam Njikam in their Olympic middleweight contest at the Peristeri Stadium.

The 20-year-old Limerick man went out of the Olympic tournament on a count-back after a spectacular comeback that saw him draw 27-27 with Njikam who had stolen a march early in the contest - winning the opening two rounds ­ but was left hanging on for dear life as Lee added a new dimension to his talents by storming back in Rocky-style finish.

“I thought he had done enough to win the fight in those last two rounds,” Irish coach, Billy Walsh, insisted. “I am a bit biased but I was taking a pretty logical look at the fight. I’ll admit that things did not go right for us early on and the Cameroon fighter won the first two rounds.

“Then Andy won the third well. I thought he won that round by at least three if not four or five points. But the fact that Njikam was in front at that stage meant so much.

“When a boxer is in front the judges are more likely to keep an eye on him. They will see his punches while they may not always see the punches thrown by the opponent who is behind. By my reckoning, Andy threw way more punches and landed way more in the third round. Yet he only won it by two points.

“And the fourth round was also Andy’s but his opponent was always going to run for it when he was in front and he got through with the odd punch and obviously the judges were watching him.”

At the mandatory post fight medical one of Andy’s eyes was slightly dilated and he was taken to hospital for a routine scan. They could not carry it out immediately so he had to remain in until yesterday when he was given the all-clear and discharged just before noon.

“It was a pretty lonely night for him,” the coach said. “I have been telling him that he let nobody down. He gave everything he had in that fight. It is just that, for some reason, it did not come together for him.

“It was very disappointing and an awful way to lose. He knows he was not at his best and that is bothering him. Maybe it was just nerves - we should not forget he is just turned 20 years of age although you would not think that because he shows a maturity that is way beyond his years,” Walsh said.

“My sharpness and timing just was not there. I was not myself,” Lee recalled. “He had changed his style from the first fight. He was moving, using the ring. He was going back and that does not suit my style.

“Billy kept telling me to feint - feint and throw my left hand when I got close. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.”

It worked a dream in the third round and he scored with two big right hands to close the gap but got caught with a big right hand over the top which might have warranted a count but still the Limerick man, in wholehearted fashion, came forward and a late flurry gave him the round 6-4.

The fourth round produced some stand-up stuff as Lee upped a gear and hunted his man down. “I think on another day I could have got it,” he said. “If I threw one more punch ­ one more jab ­ it would have been so different.”

Njikam lauded Lee, describing him as a very, very good boxer and very technical.

“In my first fight I did not box the way I wanted but now I changed my style to beat the Irishman because I saw a lot in the video,” he said.

“I knew I had won the first and second rounds. Then I decided to preserve my points for a lead. I drew on all my power.”