WORLD champion Michael Conlan insists a nasty cut picked up in Lithuania last week will not affect his preparation for a gold medal tilt at this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio.
The 24-year-old, who won flyweight bronze at London 2012, was left with a nasty gash above his eye after a clash of heads brought a premature end to his Socika Invitational semi-final bout against Moldova’s Veaceslav Goran.
It was Conlan’s first taste of competitive action since his historic victory in the bantamweight final of the World Championships last October, when he became the first Irishman to win gold at the competition.
And while he would have loved another fight, Conlan says the cut will have no bearing on his Olympic ambitions.
He said: “My eye’s fine now, it’s stitched up.
“I’ll take a wee bit of time off sparring – not too long. It’s not going to be a problem at all. It was just a bit unfortunate with the clash of heads.
“I would’ve liked another fight maybe but nothing’s going to put me off what I know I have to do and what I will do. It’s just a minor hiccup in what’s already going to happen. It’s not going to bother me at all.”
Conlan suffered two cuts en route to Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow two years ago and he admits that, in the non-headguard era, it is something all boxers are mindful of.
“Since the Commonwealths I’ve been a bit more aware of it,” he continued.
“I had two different cuts, one on my forehead and one on the top of my head, and I still won gold. It doesn’t mean anything. I probably could’ve boxed the next day [in Lithuania] if I’d really needed to, if it had been a major competition.”
Like the rest of the Irish team, Conlan has been locked away in training camps for much of this year, as head coach Zaur Antia and Conlan’s father John fine-tune preparations with Rio growing ever closer.
A fortnight ago they had a test match against Kazakhstan at the National Stadium, the day after moving into their state-of-the-art training facilities in Abbotstown, and the Clonard switch-hitter says their new home “has given us all a bit of a kick to work a bit harder knowing what’s ahead”.
Not that Conlan needs too much more motivation. Since being crowned king of the world in Doha, he knows he is a marked man.
Whereas he went to London four years ago as a relatively unknown 20-year-old, he will travel to Brazil as favourite, but the west Belfast man says he thrives on rising expectations.
“It’s a big difference,” added Conlan.
“In London I was only a boy, nothing was expected anything of me, this time people expect me to win gold.
“I actually like that feeling, that type of pressure. I don’t see it as pressure – I see it as people having confidence in me and believing in me, so I definitely believe I’ll go there and do the business.
“That’s the difference from London. I believed I could do it but I didn’t fully believe, but this time I know I’ll do it.”
