Calm and collected Jack Marley carrying Olympic weight lightly

Jack Marley isn’t the type to sweat the uncontrollables.

Sun, 28 Jul, 2024 - 15:38

Brendan O'Brien, Paris

Qualifying for the Olympics is one thing but so many more factors can colour an athlete’s chances before the first bell.

Lane draws, weather conditions, late injuries or untimely illnesses are just some of the vagaries that can make all the difference.

Few can have such a dramatic impact on the route facing an Olympian as the boxing draw held here on Thursday evening which left most Irish fighters elated at their good fortune and others steeled to the tougher path laid out before them.

Jack Marley isn’t the type to sweat these things either way.

One of three seeded Irish boxers here, he starts his heavyweight bid in Paris at roughly 7.30pm (Irish time) on Sunday evening against Mateusz Berznicki of Poland. Win that and he’s straight in against the seventh seed, Davlat Boltaev of Tajikistan.

Not easy but then the Monkstown BC man has learned to take life as it comes.

When the pre-Games cap was switched from Assisi, their regular staging post, to Germany he basically just shrugged his shoulders and got on the plane.

The path is the path.

“Last minute change but sure I’ll adapt,” he said at the time.

Marley joined boxing’s high-performance unit a month before the senior team left for the Tokyo Games and he was there when Kellie Harrington and Aidan Walsh returned with medals. He’s never had any issue with buying in and knuckling down.

And there’s no mystery in what works. Giving every ounce of himself every day is the bare minimum for Marley.

If he had one other word of advice for up-and-comers he would tell them not to forget what got them there in the first place.

Again, just do your thing and keep the head down. It’s not rocket science, or a hardship.

“The minimum you can do is give a hundred per cent every day while you are in here. It’s not like we’re in some shanty town with the worst facilities in the world. It’s a state-of-the-art institution, like. We’re blessed, like. If you don’t take full advantage of it you’re silly.”

Ireland’s rich Olympic boxing history is skewed towards smaller men.

Marley is a heavyweight with a tall pedigree and his silver at the European Games last year made him the first Irish heavy to win a major international medal in over 60 years.

That also booked his ticket to Paris.

Joe Ward competed at light-heavy for Ireland at the Rio Games in 2016 but comparisons have still been made. It’s one hell of a complement given Ward was a three-time European champion, with two World silvers and a bronze to boot.

If his Olympic career never hit the same heights – he was beaten controversially in qualifying for London and lost on the back of two docked points four years later – then he remains a man spoken of in hushed tones.

Marlay has sparred with the Westmeath man, hoovering up titbits in the ring and in the five or ten minutes after every spar.

Zaur Antia, the Irish HP head coach, made sure he had those sitdowns. Marlay has been a keen student but remains his own man.

He has been more than happy to go quietly about his training this last year with that plane ticket in his pocket and the glut of well-wishers as the Games loomed closer has been both absorbed and deflected at the same time.

“Everyone has their own opinion, their own sense of hope, going into the Games and that adds an extra little bit of an Irish sense into it. I’m happy people have their own thing and it’s not like I’ll be meeting everyone and they’ll be telling me what they’re thinking.

“I know what I am thinking. I am going there to perform and be the best version of Jack Marley I can be in that first fight. That’s all I’m working on.”