Nevin calm ahead of bid to trade up

Assured of a bronze medal, John Joe Nevin will try to cash it in for silver, at least, this afternoon (2pm) when he meets the world’s number one bantamweight, Lazaro Alvarez, in the Olympic semi-finals at the ExCel.

For a brief spell earlier this year the Mullingar man wanted nothing to do with London 2012. He won his second bronze medal at the world championships in Baku last November, added another senior title to his collection in February but then suffered a fractured jaw in the WSB which threw a spanner in the works.

“Not a lot of people know that about a month before we came here we had a very tough talking session to get him to be here,” Irish coach Billy Walsh revealed. “He wasn’t coming. He felt lots of pressures and he felt he wasn’t in the best of shape that he should have been in. We talked him through it and got him into the Indian training camp and, by the end of the camp, he started to get better, he saw progress.

“With John Joe, there’s always been a crisis. Every medal that he’s won, leading up to it there’s always been something. I was happy. ‘Why are you smiling?’ he says to me. I said ‘There’s a crisis John Joe. And when there’s a crisis around you, you always win medals’.

“I think he has that air of confidence now. He’s looking forward to this fight. I think he’ll give us everything. And, you know, with a bit of luck, he could get us right through.”

Alvarez, just turned 21, won everything last year including the world championships in Baku where he looked invincible but he suffered a significant loss this year in the President’s Cup in Almaty, where he lost to Kanat Abutalipov (Kazakhstan) on countback in the final.

Nevin beat Abutalipov 15-10 in his last 16 contest here which would indicate that he has a big chance against the Cuban who struggled early on against Robenilson Vieira de Jesus (Brazil) in the quarter-finals before beating him 13-11.

“Most Cubans are universal boxers,” Walsh said. “They can fight long-range, short-range. They have the complete (package). They’re very, very physical, very strong. You know the fast-twitch explosive athletes come from the Caribbean. All the sprinters, all the power-houses.

“This guy is a southpaw with a tight high defence. As John Joe showed the other night he’s got all the tools to win this. John Joe will be on his bike, moving and changing direction and trying to pick up those left hooks and right hands.

“He is so awkward for an opponent to try and track him down. His movement is constant and his conditioning has got better and he’s sharper. We did some hard work last night and he was on fire. He’s really enjoying it now and he also feels he’s a real chance.

“He has that experience. He has a calmness about him. You see him in the ring. He knows what he’s doing. You know he’s relaxed. He wants to go to the final.”