Walsh hits out at horses**t report

BILLY WALSH, head coach to the Irish boxing team in Beijing, has dismissed a report that their Olympic preparations were being hampered by the fact that they had elected not to train at the official training site for the boxers.

“It’s the biggest load of horses**t I’ve ever heard,” said Walsh, himself an Olympic boxer. “I did an interview with a journalist, and we were talking about things, training in Vladivostok which was very good.

‘‘We talked about fine-tuning here at the Olympic Village as the gym was a bit of a hike but it is the same problem for everyone.’’

Walsh added: “We decided amongst ourselves, as did most camps, to do the finishing part of our training at the Olympic village because what we need now we can do here.”

Since arriving in from their training camp with the Russian team in Vladivostok on Monday morning they have been doing two sessions a day – one intensive and one weight management session – and they have been attracting big audiences from the other inhabitants for those.

“There is no need to travel to the gym and it is nothing to do with facilities not being good enough,” Walsh said.

“It’s just that it suits to train here. Not bothering to travel there, nothing to do with that being good enough, doesn’t suit us. It is all about making the weight and fine-tuning.”