BOXING: LITTLE SCRAPPERS like Paddy Barnes often have the big characters. They say he's crotchety and they give him a room on his own when he's trying to make the lethal-for-many 49kg weight limit. But Barnes has humour and he has self-belief.
The Beijing bronze medallist fetched up after his man, Hungarian Istvan Ungvari, who failed to come out of the corner a minute and 24 seconds into the second round yesterday and Barnes eagerly questioned whether he was trying to qualify for Track and Field or boxing.
Ungvari, for all his slick moving and quick reactions, was finally nailed by the Belfast light flyweight in a flurry of punches. With nowhere to run Barnes caught him in a corner and hit him with a five- or six-blow combination.
It was fast and brutal and the Hungarian didn’t like it one bit. The referee indicated that Ungvari resume fighting and he didn’t. All that after a frustrating first round saw the Irishman trail 4-2.
“He ran,” said Barnes. “Feared for his life. Once I got him in that corner I was never letting him out. Ah yeah, I hurt him. He kept wincing and I told him not to carry on and he didn’t. Usian Bolt I think he was. He wanted to qualify for the Olympics in running not boxing.”
The brief workout gives Barnes one more fight to secure his place in London this summer making the day quite a different prospect to Monday’s dismay.
Both Barnes and David Oliver Joyce came through and Joyce, too, needs just one more win for a place in London. Adam Nolan needs two more successes and heavyweight Tommy McCarthy needs to win the heavyweight title.
“Glad to get the first fight out of the way, it was brilliant. Back on track,” added Barnes. And so he was.
Three weeks ago lightweight Joyce believed that London’s Olympic venue, the Exel Arena, was not going to be part of his summer schedule. At last year’s World Championships in Baku he failed to qualify for the Olympics and when he lost to Michael McDonagh in this year’s National Championships the Olympic Games seemed a distant and unreachable ambition. McDonagh then withdrew from this week’s Trabzon Qualifiers and Joyce stepped in.
Yesterday he took himself to within nine minutes of redeeming his Olympic hopes, when his busy, aggressive style overwhelmed Germany’s Artur Bril 22-14. Joyce had recently beaten the German in a pre-tournament Multi-Nations bout in Halle, Germany but only won it on a countback after finishing 16-16.
Throughout the three rounds in Trabzon, Joyce never trailed, building from 7-6 in the first to a commanding 15-10 in the second. By the time the buzzer sounded the end of the contest, he had built his score in the frequently toe-to-toe bruiser to 20 points.
Now only the physically dominant Lithuanian and 2010 Olympic Youth Champion Evaidas Petrauskas stands in his path on what has been a rocky road to London.
“I just kept in there and thought of the performance,” said Joyce. “I felt a bit sluggish but I’m happy enough. He just kept coming to me and I kept throwing my right hook. That’s my best punch. The Lithuanian is a tough lad. I fought him in Ukraine.”
“He’s a physical lad, a strong lad and I’ll just have to get my tactics right.”
Coach Billy Walsh, though, wasn’t in the mood for high grades. “We’re happy enough. It was a solid performance rather than an exceptional performance,” he added. “It took him a while to get going today but I think he’ll be better tomorrow.”
