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.
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An enormous sport-by-sport, 212-page document, the section of the review on the Irish Athletic Boxing Association’s (IABA) experience of the Games was conducted by Brian MacNiece of Kontinos Partners Limited and put together after 39 one-to-one inteviewees.
Walsh, now Head Coach with Team USA, was among them.
The conclusion was clear.
“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 report asked. “The answer is unequivocally the latter. There are fundamental weaknesses that have been exposed by the Rio outcome.”
There was the reason for hope offered in the statement that the potential exists to restore the programme to its former status as the best and most productive, in terms of medals, in the Irish sports programme.
Irish boxers have claimed 55 medals across all levels in international competition stretching back to the start of 2015 which suggest that the conveyor belt of talent is secure for now despite the loss of boxers including Taylor, Conlan and Barnes to the pro ranks.
However, there was a call for the IABA leadership and other stakeholders to work together to implement the reforms required. Easier said than done in a sport where infighting has been a regular occurrence though the CEO, chairman and president are all apparently on board.
“The simple analysis would suggest that the failings in Rio were brought about by a combination of the departure of Billy Walsh as Head Coach to the programme and a string of unfortunate events including questionable judging decisions, a positive drugs test and a loss of confidence during the Games as results started to go against the team. This would mask the root causes.”
The fault lines in the programme were there to be seen long before Walsh left for America, it said, before listing a number of issues in need of attention.
The absence of a dedicated High Performance Director since the departure of Gary Keegan in 2008
Head coaches expected to perform dual roles of coaching and leading the programme
A lack of autonomy for decision-making within the High Performance programme
The slippage of boxer discipline and a commitment to the culture of high performance within the programme
The maintenance of accurate records of key boxer data
The need to speed up the move of the HP programme to the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown
Access to high-quality, well co-ordinated support service providers challenged to continually improve in the service of the boxers
The need to develop more high-performance coaches throughout the system and the introduction of HP athletes into coaching roese
“Irish boxing is potentially at a crossroads.” the report continued.
“If the key issues identified in this review are addressed and significant changes implemented, then the High Performance Programme can recover its status with the new batch of boxers. However, if the opportunity for change is not grasped now then the decline evidenced by Rio and identified previously by the coaches in 2013 will continue.”Rio Review says boxing programme needs to change or fail again
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