Carruth expects Irish coaching duo to stay on

Michael Carruth has said he expects to see Billy Walsh and Zaur Antia re-appointed to their positions as head coach and technical coach of boxing’s High Performance Unit, but only after “a bit of niggling”.

The former gold medallist beat Walsh in the national championships in 1992 on his way to the Barcelona Games and now works as a development officer at the IABA. But he said that Walsh and Georgian native Antia must have patience because given funding available right now, even their Olympic performance doesn’t guarantee anything.

“As far as I’m concerned, the contracts are up for negotiation and I don’t see the IABA not keeping Billy and Zaur on. They built up a great relationship with the boxers, it’s not just a five or six-week training camp that gets you ready for an Olympics, it’s three or four years and they’ve done extremely well in that time. They trust one another and the boxers trust them and we are not going to cut off our nose to spite our face in the IABA, because we know that it’s working. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t continue.