Barnes: If I win gold medal, I’ll be happy
Following on Katie Taylor’s silver medal performance earlier in the day, the Belfast man’s achievement also means that the team has now equalled the best-ever performance by an Irish boxing team at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 when they won one silver and three bronze medals.
But High Performance Coach, Billy Walsh, pointed out that there is still Katie’s final today when she will almost certainly cash in her silver medal for an Olympic Gold and John Joe Nevin, Michael Conlan and now Paddy Barnes face semi-final bouts tomorrow.
There was relief all round when Paddy Barnes stepped out of the ring last night as Coach Walsh admitted that there was huge pressure on him following the successes of his team mates earlier in the week.
He handled it well, however, coping with the expected early surge of energy from Laishram, pushing him back with combinations and catching him with some good single shots to the head. A big combination towards the end of the first round saw him win the round 7-5.
He maintained that pattern throughout the fight — catching his opponent coming on and when the Indian was given a public warning for going in with his head low in the second round the two points added to Barnes’ score saw him win the round 10-5 for a 17-10 cushion.
Barnes himself, however, conceded a foolish two points in the third round for holding Laishram repeatedly. He quickly went back to business and, although Laishram won the round 8-6, he had plenty in hand.
Despite the significance of his second Olympic medal, Barnes, insisted he was not happy yet. Earlier Shiming Zou beat Birzhan Zhakypov (Kazakhstan) 13-10 (3-3, 5-3, 5-4) in the other quarter final and Barnes has some old scores to settle with him tomorrow afternoon.
When they met at the World Championships in Chicago in 2007, Zou won 22-8 and when they met in the semi-finals at the Olympic Games in Beijing Zou was awarded a 15-0 verdict when Barnes had caught him with some good shots.
“I’m not happy just yet,” Barnes said. “I’m fighting a guy in my next fight whose beaten me 15-0 in Beijing. My plan for the next fight is to go in and score a point. I just want to get that one point that’s my Olympic goal. Zou Ha! Ha! “He mightn’t look that sharp but he’s three times World Champion, Olympic champ and he’s world class. He’s fighting a Commonwealth Champion so I think you make a story out of that.
“At the end of the first round I knew I was up, I was hurting him with body shots and hurt him with a head shot at one stage.
“I sparred him before in Dublin and he was very fast and tough, he actually hit hard, and I had to be really cautious going into that fight.
“But I just out-fought him in the first round, I pushed him back, beat him at his own game and it worked out.
“I haven’t really thought about being the first boxer to win two Olympic medals because I haven’t won anything yet, I’m only into the semi-finals.
“I not going to stop and be happy because I want the gold medal. If I win the gold medal I’ll be happy.”
Asked if it made the last four years worthwhile he said: “Definitely. Like, if I’d lost that fight, I’d be off funding. I’d have to go and work in Tescos.
“See if every Irish fan there had given me a pound I’d be a millionaire, I wouldn’t need to work every day.
“I could never lose that fight, my whole life was on the line. My reputation. I needed to win that fight. I felt pressure alright but I didn’t show it. I never really show my emotions.
“It was a tough fight. He was strong, fit and very, very dangerous. I kept my cool, kept a tight defence and got my shots off and came out the winner.
“I was making him miss and attacking him. That was the game plan. It was a bit sloppy at times because I knew what was at stake. I’ve got the medal in the bag. I just need to change the colour of it.
“Just even qualifying for the Olympics was a dream come true, but now I’ve got two medals. I’m just over the moon.
“I’ve no sponsorship at the moment but One Direction tweeted me yesterday, so that got me a few followers. John Joe Nevin won’t be happy about that but sure, what can you do? I’d rather two days’ rest, but sure this time next week I’ll be home in bed with a gold medal round my neck.
“With each fight, you can see from my last fight that I’ve improved 10 per cent. Another 10 per cent in the next fight and that will be 120 per cent altogether.”
“It’s brilliant, there was a bit of pressure on him because everyone else was winning,” Billy Walsh said. “We set targets for ourselves and we wanted to be the best team that ever represented Ireland and we are up there with them now — we’ve matched the Melbourne team.”
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