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.

“But we are in a climate where there’s a pretty bad recession and that needs to be realised. Nobody’s job is safe, even when you are bringing home Olympics medals, you can’t be guaranteed your wages will be there. Now I can’t see the Government stopping all funding. They might have to cut corners and that’s understandable, but if they want to meet us on podiums and in airports, they need to keep the funding. It’s 20 years since me and Wayne McCullough won gold and silver and we probably shouldn’t have gotten those medals, because we were part-time fighters. But we were full-time fighters off our own backs in reality. With the high performance the way it is, they are paid to represent their country and rightly so, and with the guys there on a full-time basis, Billy and Zaur have done a great job.”

Both Walsh and Antia have complained about having to play the waiting game after masterminding four Olympic medals this time, after three others in Beijing. It has led to approaches and offers from other associations, as well as huge unrest and speculation, but Carruth did note that if they decided to move on, Ireland has depth in terms of coaching, as well as depth in terms of boxers.

“They got a four-year contract and the bottom line with that is, you negotiate when it terminates. So now they are at that point. There is a worry about other countries coming in and taking them but there’s a huge wealth of coaching talent out there as well. I’d hate to see them go, but to be honest, there’s a lot of experience to come in if we needed others to come in. But I still don’t think we are going to do that in this country. The Sports Council, the Olympic Council and the boxing association will get their heads together. There might be a little bit of niggling going on alright but they’ll sort it out somehow and we’ll see Billy and Zaur as national coach and technical coach again come the new year.

“We have to keep what we have. If it’s not broken, don’t try and fix it.”

Carruth was speaking at the National Athlete Development Academy’s coaching development course in DCU which has seen 25 coaches from various sporting groups in Ireland attend a four-day course with some of the world’s premier trainers.