Former Olympic champion Michael Carruth is backing the Irish senior team to do well at this month’s World Boxing Championships in Chicago, and he believes that winning a medal at this level can be an enormous confidence booster going into next year’s Olympics Games.
An 11-man Irish senior squad, under the Irish Amateur Boxing Association’s (IABA) High Performance director Gary Keegan and coaches Billy Walsh, Zuar Antia and Jim Moore, flew out to Chicago last Tuesday ahead of the World Championships, which begin at the University of Illinois on October 23.
The championships will also act as the first qualifying tournament for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Five Irish boxers, including Carruth, have won medals (all bronze) at World Champion-ship level since 1974. James Moore – son of Irish coach Jim – was the last Irish athlete to finish in a podium position at this level in Belfast in 2001.
Moore, who has since turned professional and remains unbeaten after 12 fights, captained the Irish team in 2001 and was involved in a thrilling semi-final with American Anthony Thompson, who was handed a 36–24 verdict despite being forced into a standing count by Moore in the fourth and final round.
Eleven years prior to Moore’s achievement, Michael Carruth, from the Drimnagh Boxing Club, reached the semi-finals of the World Championships in Moscow where he was beaten by Andreas Otto of East Germany, who lost the light welterweight final to Igor Ruzhnikov of the Soviet Union.
Carruth exacted sweet revenge for that defeat, however, by beating Otto – who was then boxing for the reunified Germany – in the quarter-finals of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, en route to claiming an historic gold medal for Ireland following his victory over Cuba’s Juan Hernandez.
Looking ahead to the 2007 World Championships, Carruth reckons that doing well in Chicago will give Irish boxers the self-belief to step up and compete with distinction on the highest stage of them all.
He said: “It was a great confidence booster for me to win a medal at the World Championships in Moscow in 1989. I proved to myself there that I could compete with the best in the world, and when I qualified for the Olympics I wasn’t overawed by the opposition.
“Likewise, I believe that if the Irish team can do well in Chicago and secure qualification for the Beijing Olympics in the process, it will be a great confidence booster as they will have proved to themselves that they can compete against the best in the game.”
Carruth also believes that the European Union Champion-ships, which saw Ken Egan, Darren Sutherland, and Roy Sheahan claim gold and Cathal McMonagle and Carl Frampton win silver at the National Stadium in Dublin last June, exhibited the winning mentality that the Irish team need travelling to Chicago.
Carruth added: “The important thing at this level is to keep winning and to make winning a habit. I believe that the Irish team have the talent to do well in Chicago and to also do well at the Olympics.
“Let’s face it – if I, and Wayne McCullough and all the other Irish boxers who won medals at the Olympics and World Championships can do it, then why can’t they? It’s all about self-belief, and that self-belief comes from winning.
“The preliminary rounds in Chicago will be very important. If the first Irish boxers into the ring win their fights, then that will have a very positive effect on the rest of the squad.
“It is going to be intense, and nothing can be left for chance, but we are sending a talented squad to Chicago and this is their chance to prove themselves.”
The five Irish boxers to win medals at the World Championships since 1974 are Tyrone light middleweight Tommy Corr, Dublin light welterweight Michael Carruth, Belfast flyweight Damaen Kelly, Belfast light heavyweight Stephen Kirk and Arklow welterweight James Moore.
There will be two final Olympic qualifying tournaments for European boxers in Italy (Pescara) and Greece (Athens) in February and April next year.
Meanwhile, world and back-to-back European lightweight champion Katie Taylor is currently in Denmark, where she is targeting an historic third medal in a row at the 2007 Women’s European Champion-ships in Vejle.
The tournament began last Monday and at press time it was impossible to know how Taylor was doing.
However, given her dominance of the 60kg division, there is a strong possibility that she will be competing in this weekend’s finals where she would be targeting her third European gold medal on the trot.
Twenty-one-year-old Taylor, from the St Fergal’s club in Bray, received a boost before the Europeans with the release of September’s ABA rankings which have her placed as number one in the world and Europe for the eighth month running.
Elsewhere in Europe, Irish featherweight Carl Frampton claimed gold from a Multi Nations tournament in Cyprus last week after knocking out Muhammad Sayed in the first round.
The hieroglyphics were on the wall for the Egyptian just 1 minute and 30 seconds into the first after he was dropped by a right from Frampton and was counted out.
Frampton, from the Midlands White City club in Belfast, beat another Egyptian opponent, Muhammad Tuba, on points in the semi-final.
But while Frampton was celebrating, Paulstown Kilkenny middleweight Darren O’Neill had to be content with silver after he lost his final to Russian David Arustamian on a split decision.
Coach Tony Davitt, from the Drimnagh boxing club in Dublin, said they were delighted with the medal haul as they had only two boxers competing in the tournament.
He said: “We are thrilled to be taking home two medals. But it should have been two golds as I though that Darren won his fight and I am unhappy with the decision to say the least.
“But leaving that aside, the lads performed unbelievably out here and we couldn’t have asked any more from them as they gave it everything in the ring.”
On the home scene, the Upton brothers, James and Paul – from the Westside club in Dublin – will be hoping to make it a family double at the National U-21 Championships which conclude at the National Stadium in Dublin on Friday 19 October.
Both brothers advanced to the finals following semi-final wins last weekend, with James beating Mark Ginley 16–8 and Paul coming from behind to see off the challenge of St Michael’s Athy welterweight John Joe Joyce by 15–12.
But there was disappointment for a third Upton brother, Sonny, after he lost his semi-final to Stephen Donnelly.
Heavyweight Con Sheehan will be Munster’s sole representative in Friday’s finals, following his final four win over John Reah on Saturday night.
Irish 2007 World
Championship Squad:
48kg: Paddy Barnes (Holy Family GG)
51kg: Conor Ahern (Baldoyle)
54kg: Ryan Lindberg (Immaculata)
57kg: David Oliver Joyce
(St Michael’s Athy)
60kg: Eric Donovan
(St Michael’s Athy)
64kg: John Joe Joyce
(St Michael’s Athy)
69kg: Roy Sheahan
(St Michael’s Athy)
75kg: Darren Sutherland
(St Saviours OBA)
81kg: Ken Egan (Neilstown)
91kg: John Sweeney (Dungloe)
91+kg: Cathal McMonagle (Holy Trinity)
