Rio Review says boxing programme needs to change or fail again

“Was this a blip in an otherwise outstanding success story or was the Rio result symptomatic of underlying failings in the High Performance programme?”

The suggestion that the failure of Ireland’s boxing team at last year’s Olympic Games was down simply to a combination of misfortune, dodgy decisions and the loss of Billy Walsh has been blown out of the water by the official ‘Rio Review, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Ireland brought its largest ever boxing team to a Games last summer with eight fighters, including Katie Taylor, Michael Conlan and Paddy Barnes. Expectations were high after notable successes for boxing at the previous Games in Beijing and London, but they returned empty-handed.