Hard act to follow as Nevin fights to maintain winning sequence

NOT so long ago John Joe Nevin was being groomed as a London 2012 prospect, but today he will climb into the Olympic boxing ring at the Workers Gymnasium as a big medal prospect for Beijing.

Fellow Mullingar man John Joe Joyce has left the teenager — he turned 19 years of age in June — with a very difficult act to follow when he turned the tables on his longtime tormentor, Gyula Kate, in a thrilling fight to claim his place among the last 16 light welterweights.

A place in the last 16 bantamweights will be the prize when John Joe Nevin takes on Adbdelhalim Ourradi of Algeria in tonight’s preliminaries (3.30pm approx) and, while he faces a vastly more experienced opponent, one could never dismiss his chances.

His rise from an outstanding junior to a formidable senior began in one spectacular week at the national senior championships last January that saw him demolish the defending champion, Ryan Lindberg, in the semi-finals before claiming the title.

Lindberg had been to the world championships in search of Olympic qualification and now it was Nevin’s turn for a shot at that particular prize.

He did not disappoint his new fanclub when he went to the first of the European qualifying tournaments in Pescara where he became the second Irish boxer to earn qualification after Paddy Barnes. He came away from that tournament with a gold medal and his Olympic medal hopes reinforced. He then went to the EU championships to claim another gold medal.

If he comes through tonight’s contest with his hopes intact, he will progress to the medal stages, at least.

The 27-year-old Algerian has been down this road before having made the top eight in Sydney. He won silver at last year’s African championships, having won bronze at flyweight two years earlier. He won a gold medal at this year’s Ahmet Comert tournament in Istanbul and silver at the Felix Sztamm tournament in Warsaw.

“He is a very good opponent,” said Irish coach Billy Walsh. “He has been around the rings and is very experienced. We did not know much about the Algerians until we met them at training camps recently and I must say I was very impressed by their technique. Having said that, John Joe (Nevin) is a very technical boxer who has skills way beyond his years. He can box, he can mix it and, above all, he is very, very competitive. I think we have the makings of a really good contest here. We got ourselves off to a very good start with wins for Kenny (Egan) and Johnny (Joyce) and it would be nice to maintain the sequence.”

Kenneth Egan and John Joe Joyce will be in the ring on Thursday and if they can repeat their first wins in the preliminaries, they will find themselves boxing for medals next time around.

Light flyweight Paddy Barnes and middleweight Darren Sutherland are already in that situation having got byes in the first round.