Conlan ready to show his class
High performance coach, Billy Walsh, was the first to admit last night that Nolan faces an enormous task against the world silver medallist, Andrey Zamkovoy (Russia), for a place in the quarter-finals.
“Adam is up against the former world silver medallist. He’s a complete underdog going in there and he’s looking forward to having a go.”
Nolan will revel in that role. He hammered out a 14-8 victory over Carlos Sanchez (Ecuador) in his first fight when he admitted he had never been so nervous in his life. In fact he told his club coach, Pete Taylor, he had no recollection of the pre-fight formalities. That might have accounted for third round fatigue which saw him take his foot off the pedal and allow his opponent to get through with some worrying body shots.
“He’s in top class shape,” Billy Walsh assured. “He’s in great condition — he’s never been in as good condition — and that was fatigue caused by stress and nervous energy in the last round.”
At the start of the qualification campaign the Wexford garda, based in Bray where he trains alongside Katie Taylor, was among the less likely of the Irish qualifiers. Yet he went on to win all his contests and the gold medal in Trabzon.
If he can repeat that, he will make things difficult for Zamkovoy, who has a decision over another Irishman, Willie McLaughlin. The Russian beat McLaughlin 16-7 at the world championships in Milan in 2009 when he won his silver medal.
This season has been fragmented for the Russian, with losses to Serik Sapiyev (Kazakhstan), 14-4, in the International Team Tournament in Almaty and Errol Spence (USA), on countback, 9-9, at the Chemistry Cup in Halle where Adam Nolan won a bronze medal. On that form the Russian is beatable and he will not relish the rangy Wexford southpaw’s style.
“As a welterweight I would not like to be fighting Adam because he is very awkward,” Walsh said. “He is a lot better than what we saw the last night.”
Stylish flyweight Michael Conlan has been singled out as a possible medallist and, after a bye in the first round, he gets his campaign underway against Duke Mikah (Ghana).
“Michael is in against an African who we’ve watched on video,” Walsh said. “He’s beatable, but tough and durable. It’s Michael’s first fight, he (Mikah) has a fight under his belt which will stand to him. It’s all to play for. It’s about performance. If Michael goes in and performs, I know he’s far better than this guy but he’s got to go in and perform in that cauldron.
“It’s like a gladiator. You can hear the crowd baying. It’s very hard to control your emotions. If we can control Michael’s emotions — he is a very emotional guy — he’ll do really well.
“It’s great to have the British support for you rather than against you. We built this country. Half of them are Irish — we came over and bred a few. It’s great, it’s fantastic.”
Conlan was looking forward to getting his Olympic campaign under way when he reflected on Beijing and watching Paddy Barnes, who comes from the other side of Belfast, winning his bronze medal.
“Four years ago I was watching Paddy Barnes winning an Olympic bronze medal and Kenny Egan and Darren Sutherland as well, but Paddy was the one I was looking at because he was about the same weight as I was,” he said. “I would not say I was a big fan of his — he was more of a target for me to try and beat him. I was 16.
“I was boxing since I was seven years of age. I had a couple of Irish titles at that stage.”
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