Sport

IOC should act now and postpone Olympics until autumn says former Irish coach Billy Walsh

Billy Walsh is due to lead Team USA into a second Olympics - and the former Irish coach hopes the Games are postponed until later in the year. Picture by Hugh Russell
Billy Walsh is due to lead Team USA into a second Olympics - and the former Irish coach hopes the Games are postponed until later in the year. Picture by Hugh Russell Billy Walsh is due to lead Team USA into a second Olympics - and the former Irish coach hopes the Games are postponed until later in the year. Picture by Hugh Russell

LEAD

FORMER Irish head coach Billy Walsh has urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone Tokyo 2020 until the autumn – to ensure a level playing field for athletes across the world.

Following a meeting of its executive board on Sunday, the IOC confirmed it is considering a postponement, imposing a deadline of four weeks to make a decision.

And Walsh - who will lead Team USA at a second consecutive Olympic Games – hopes they eventually decide to move away from the summer.

The Wexford man, his squad and coaches were gearing up for the America Olympic qualifiers in Buenos Aires, with the action scheduled to run from Thursday until April 3.

Like its European equivalent, and the World qualifier set for Paris in May, the Americas tournament has been delayed indefinitely, wreaking havoc with boxers’ preparations for a Games that, as things stand at the minute anyway, are due to start on July 24.

“At the moment, it’s an unfair field because the other side of the world is back in training where our teams have now stopped training,” said Walsh, who helped Ireland to medal-laden performances at the 2008 and 2008 Olympics before moving Stateside in 2015.

“All the gyms are closed, the swimming pools, the running tracks. We are now in an unfair position if it does go ahead when it’s supposed to. I think there will be a big call shortly to suspend it, maybe until October or November, which would also be a better climate to host the Olympic Games.

“We were over for a boxing test event around the time of the last week of the Rugby World Cup last year, and it was perfect. Obviously having boxed at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, they were held in September and it was a much better climate.

“It would be ideal if, coming out the other side of this, we were all on a level playing field in maybe October, because that just wouldn’t be the case in July/August the way things are going. If not we should look at postponing it to next year but if they’re going to be done this year, it should be pushed back to October and that would give us all a chance to get over what’s going on.

“At the minute, we don’t even know when the qualifier is going to be.”

The Olympic training centre in Colorado, where Walsh and Team USA are based, was closed down last week with “35 or 36 boxers” - between the 13 Olympic weights and sparring partners - sent home.

In his first Olympics with the US, which came just nine months after his acrimonious split from the Irish Athletic Boxing Association, they returned from Rio with a gold (Claressa Shields), a silver (Shakur Stevenson) and a bronze (Nico Hernandez).

Four years on, and with America restored to its position as a force to be reckoned with in world boxing, expectations are high.

And Walsh hopes the unease caused by the coronavirus crisis won’t have an effect on his fighters being ready to rock the time the Olympics finally get under way.

He added: “It’s a time of uncertainty but we had a talk with the team reminding them of the big picture.

“At the moment, the Olympic Games are going to go ahead. In China, where this all began, it has started to dissipate. They started in December where we’re only starting now, so we’re only a few months behind them – whether they move the Olympic Games or not I don’t know, but the Olympic Games is going to happen.

“They seem to be getting a handle on it so if we’re healthy, we’ll be allowed to go there. It’s all very messy at the moment but we’re remaining focused and staying in a positive mind that it’s going to happen at some stage.

“In every crisis there are also opportunities, and I’ve been saying to our guys this is a chance to go back to basics, improve our skills and our physicality over this period of time and when the occasion comes, we’ll be ready.”

OFF LEAD

BRENDAN Irvine was still only a young boy when he burst onto the scene at the tail end of Billy Walsh’s successful spell as head coach of the Irish team.

After winning his first national elite title at the start of 2015, aged just 18, Irvine accelerated through the ranks, winning light-fly silver at the inaugural European Games that summer to announce his arrival on the international scene.

A year later he was preparing for the Olympic Games in Rio before taking home silver from the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia. Since then, though, it was one setback after another, with a wrist injury followed by a fractured foot leaving ‘Wee Rooster’ on the sidelines for much of the past two years.

Irvine was in a race against time to be back for a crack at the Olympic qualifiers in London but, having made it onto the team, he was only Irish boxer who beat the clock to secure his spot at Tokyo 2020 – winning the fight he needed to on the same night the event was suspended.

Watching on from across the pond was Walsh, full of admiration for the man Irvine has become in the face of troubling times.

“I messaged him when he qualified,” said the Wexford man.

“It’s a great testament to his character and the person that he is because he’s had two years of hell between hand and foot problems. But he kept working, got himself back in the position where he was able to go to the qualifiers and then go on and get the job done. He’s a quality man and a class act.”

At the same World Championships where Michael Conlan became the first Irishman to return home with gold, Irvine also made his bow on the big stage in what would turn out to be Walsh’s final appearance in an Irish corner.

He recalls even then thinking back then towards the end of 2015 that this was a young man going places.

“He was the new kid on the scene when I was there, but I remember him going to the 2015 World Championships where he beat USA’s Nico Fernandez – Nico went on to win bronze in Rio.

“Then he pushed the Cuban [Joahnys Argilagos] very close; that was a great fight. He was absolutely brilliant, especially considering this was a young kid in one of his first big international competitions.

“I was over the moon for him last week. Two-time Olympian… that’s something to be very proud of.”