BOXING NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS:The road to the Olympics is a long and hard one for Ireland's boxers. JOHNNY WATTERSONwitnessed the highs and lows of those dreaming of glory in London at the Irish Senior Championships

WEEK ONE

Day 1, Friday, February 11th, 12.45pm

THEY STRIP off unselfconsciously and, goose-pimpled, stand in just their jocks and miraculous medals. Tommy Hilfiger. adidas. Jockey. Dolce Gabanna. Their clothes lie in a heap on the floor or on the plastic chairs in the backroom of the National Stadium. The weigh-in is where London 2012 begins.

An Irish senior title is a passport to the Baku World Championships in September. Do well there, the top 10 in some weights, and the Olympic Games ticket is booked. If not, there is Istanbul next year for a final roll. The Championships are a win or bust window over three weekends. You weigh in. You make it through to the final. You win. It’s that simple.

Tommy McCarthy, a Commonwealth heavyweight silver medallist from Belfast, makes the limit easily. Paddy Gallagher, a Commonwealth gold medallist, also from West Belfast, nods his head and smiles. They step on to the scales knowing where the needle will stop. Most try to make the weight to within ounces to conserve strength.

Paddy Barnes, 23-years-old, Olympic bronze medal winner, European gold medal winner, Commonwealth gold medal winner and as spare as a Presbyterian spire, is a light flyweight, a sculpted 48 kilos of muscle and sinew. You cannot become a light flyweight – you are born one. Even then, his is a life devoted to the kilo.

“I haven’t slept,” he says. “You’re so dehydrated you can’t sleep. You toss and turn in bed all night. You dream about water. I can starve no problem. See dehydration, it’s a killer. Bang on I was, though. Bang on.

“My Da picked me up, drove down this morning. You can’t eat nothing on weigh-in day. Nothing at all. That’s the major thing in boxing, making the weight. Even the training is easy. Making the weight is tough. I can’t tell you what a kebab is.”

McCarthy has just turned 20, works part-time in a pub, The National, in Queen Street in the city centre. Gallagher works mornings in Marks and Spencer on Boucher Road, not far from Windsor Park. Combining life with ambition isn’t easy for either.

“I don’t think of the Olympics. Not this morning. No, not this morning,” says McCarthy. “I’m not even thinking about the boxing, to be honest. I’m just thinking about the weight and then going to get something to eat. I’ve moved up a weight so it’s not that tight. I’m doing heavyweight this year. First time. I weighed 88.5 kilos and it’s 91 kilos, so it’s no problem.

“For me this is the Olympic qualifying. Whoever wins the Irish title at every weight has a very strong possibility of qualifying. The hardest thing is to win your national championship. This is it. If you want to go to the Olympics you need to win this.”

They all dart for food.

Day 1, evening session

Gallagher is missing his spark. One off night in Dublin and the Commonwealth champion bombs out to Glasnevin’s Daniel Quinn 6-1. Where does he go now?

Day 2, Saturday February 12th, evening session

McCarthy pulls a hard draw and falls to Con Sheehan 5-0. No dispute. The pub work will become harder in 2011, the journey from Andersonstown longer. The Olympic Games vanish.

WEEK TWO

Friday, February 18th, evening session, 6.45pm

John Joe Nevin is intoxicating the crowd. They watch, his speed, his reflexes, wonder how he does it. He is just back from Paris where he is permitted to fight professionally over five rounds, no protective gear. In an effort to hold their stars, amateur boxing has relaxed its rules. Amateur doesn’t mean amateur anymore. It’s simply the name of the Olympic sport.

Nevin went to Beijing at 18, became a World Championship bronze medallist a year later, and fights professionally from Paris, McCarthy from Milan, Ken Egan from Miami.

Tonight he is untouchable. He hits off balance. He moves too fast. A top fighter might run him down, somehow. But now he is at his breathtaking best, diving in to score, changing direction on the way and flashing out sideways, swaying shoulders, as meticulously choreographed as any dancer.

Someone says Nevin can suck in his stomach on the move to avoid a scything blow from the side. You can believe it, although he has no stomach. His opponent doesn’t lay a glove on him. Literally. Nevin beats Derek Thorpe 9-0. He’s in the final.

“In my head I’m still the champion,” he says. “I’m going for four on the trot. It will have to be a good lad that’ll beat me for the title this year. Last week wasn’t great at all. This week I’m backing myself. My foot work is brilliant. I’m happy with my hand speed. Everything is just perfect. This is my qualifier. I’ll just get over this.”

His coach, Brian McKeown, walks past. “Too handy for him,” says the bantamweight’s trainer. You feel he’s not always easily pleased.

February 18th, 7.22pm

European bronze medallist and welterweight champion John Joe Joyce moves 5-3 ahead in the third round in a thrilling bout with St Saviours’ Karl Brabazon and appears to be advancing. There is a cruel twist. Joyce hands back two points for a low blow. He claws back to 6-6, reasserting his status. Brabazon shows little respect and lands two scoring shots in the final 30 seconds.

Joyce, another anointed fighter with a podium grant of €40,000, departs. He rips off his gloves and head guard and furiously slams them on the canvas in his corner. He shakes his head in disbelief and stalks the ring in no particularly direction, his life in the months ahead far from certain.

February 18th, 8.55pm

We track him to the red corner dressingroom. Wounded, he is in a corner. It’s a Friday night of carnage in the National Stadium, a night where Olympic dreams are perishing. It’s just before 9pm and Eric Donovan’s dream of London 2012 needs resurrection.

He’s ripping off his vest, the two-time lightweight champion, last year’s boxer of the year, a European bronze medallist, defeated. These moments are the ruins of his evening, his wretched disappointment and bemusement lending him a strange vulnerability.

Ken Egan is wrapping his hands chatting in another corner before his fight, O’Donovan a straw-haired, deflated figure sprawled on his chair wiping the sweat from his forehead. Each time he brushes the towel across his face another spring of salty liquid bursts from his pores. His heart is still racing. His body has not yet stepped outside the ropes. But in his mind he is finished.

“It’s ridiculous,” he says shaking his head. “First I want to say congratulations to Michael (McDonagh). It’s not his fault. He’s not sitting outside the ring. There’s so many boxers coming to these championships with a negative approach. There’s so many good guys going out. These guys are throwing about four, five shots in the whole fight. It’s ridiculous. They’re looking for a sneaky point and wrapping up, closing up shop.”

This was to be Donovan’s fight, his year. This was to be the beginning of his Olympic dream. This was to launch his career towards the World Championships and into the next 12 months that will take the best of Irish boxers to London. The Irish Sports Council backed him with €40,000 the day before. A podium prospect. Like Joyce, no more.

He looks up seeking an explanation, someone to put words to his disordered thoughts. There is no one. So he talks in a stream of consciousness, bewildered, regretful, pleading and hoping. But it is gone. His dream for now has gone. He has dropped it and he doesn’t understand why. A night of certainty has become one of lament. We find the former lightweight champion as raw as he will ever be.

“Where’s all this boxing we’ve been learning – to jab to step back, the slips, the rolls?” he asks. Again there is no answer. “Where’s all that. All the skill’s gone out of the game. You can pull anyone off the street. Anyone. A rugby player, anyone like that, a big bulky guy, show him how to tighten defence, throw out a few shots and wrap up again.

“I love boxing. I love the chess game within. Hit, don’t get hit. I love that. I’m very upset with the way it’s gone. It’s disheartening. The Olympics aren’t on yet. I don’t know if it’s gone yet. I always have hope.”

Someone offers a crumb of comfort and tells the boxer he was the one throwing all the punches. The locker room door opens and the words are lost as a draft of the noise roars in from the ring.

February 18th, 9.36pm

Ken Egan. The crowd love him. They love his mischief, his carousing and his imperfections. The schedule of rising weight divisions throughout the evening ensures he is one of the tail end bouts and the organisers know the crowd will hang on to see him fight. They will wait to see the Olympic medallist.

They like the fact that he’s handsome and a big-muscled light heavyweight, who has announced to all who will listen that anything less than his 11th successive senior title is failure. They like his tabloid attention, his bravado and his showmanship.

They like his normality, his faltering path through the avenues of celebrity and no shows. Most of all they like his boxing, his economy of style and the certainty he goes about business in the ring.

Egan puts himself on a podium, yes another worth €40,000, and he challenges his opponents to knock him off. Tonight he is wilfully accurate and miserly and 5-1 up after the first round. At 10-1 up a towel arches over the ropes from the corner of Thomas Roohan. They have seen enough. One-sided, the fight ends with dignity. It is Egan’s 22nd consecutive Senior win.

“I didn’t really waste much. Not that I ever do,” he says from the same patch of the red corner room that was so desolate for Donovan an hour before.

“When I was hitting him I was hurting him. That body shot crippled him in the end. They were right to throw the towel in. I felt strong. I want to be champion of my country again. The Olympics is over with. That’s tucked away. That’s history. I’m living in the present, which was tonight. I’ll focus about next week now, keep sharp, keep an eye on the weight. I’m on the straight and narrow. My head’s right. The only person who’s going to beat me is myself.” He’s not finished. He turns his attention to boxing, echoes Donovan’s biting words.

“I’m not happy with the boxing out there, to be honest,” says the Irish team figurehead.

“Peek-a-boo boxing, it’s crap. It’s ruining the game. I wouldn’t pay €20 in here to watch that. It’s not boxing. It’s a disgrace. It’s not a way to win a fight.”

WEEK THREE

February 25th, the finals

There’s too much to risk dwelling on fallen fighters. The Darwinian view of eat or be eaten may leave talent behind but so to do others step forward. The most successful Irish Olympic sport of all understands jungle law, the concept of no mistakes, ever. There are few weighted considerations here, no A or B standards to bicker about. But there is clarity. Two of the best fighters on the island have fallen, their pre-Olympic year plans shattered. This weekend brings the prospect of more pain.