EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
The last two Olympics, 2008 and 2012, bringing
back seven medals, the interest is there for two
weeks and that’s not the boxers fault or the
coaches’ fault. Take the Donegal Football Team
who are a great team, they received RTE Sports
Team of the Year but they represent their county,
the boxers should have won it, if not the boxers, it
should have been the Para Olympians, because we
are representing our country, four and half million
people and we are the best in the country, chosen
to represent our country against the rest of the
world. The problem is, as I said is its not been sold
right. We need to make it more attractive, more
Home Internationals against the likes of the
Cubans, the Americans, the Russians, and these
should be happening every few months but its not
been done at the moment. I think it needs to
change, the whole set up, we have a great
performance in place, a lot of people were not very
happy with it but he continued with it. I jumped on
the band wagon and I’m glad I did, it got me to an
Olympic final. Then to bring Zuar in from Georgia
and to have a strength and condition coach, John
Cleary, and all these factors improved me as an
athlete and as a boxer. It’s definitely the way forward, the proof is in the pudding, we have won over
a hundred medals at all ages, we won seven
Olympic medals at the last two Olympics.
We hadn’t won one since 1992 with Michael
Carruth , things are working now but we need to
keep improving, keep going to top countries and be
looking to improve. Coaching is very important in
this country, it is important that we start in the
clubs. There should be seminars around the
country and showing coaches what training is
happening in the High Performance, so when the
young boxers come to the High Performance
Programme they know what the set up of the
training drills are. There needs to be a continuous
conveyer belt of top coaching seminars all over this
country.
PROFILE
REAL NAME
NICKNAME
6ft 2in (1.88m)
NATIONALITY
Irish
BORN
January 7th, 1982, Clondalkin,
Dublin, Ireland.
STANCE
8
Light-Heavyweight
HEIGHT
Ken: The only problem with amateur boxing in this
country is it’s not recognised. It’s actually a
disgrace. It’s not sold right, published or advertised
correctly because it’s a great sport that shows its
face every four years at the Olympic Games. We
are the only sport that does well, especially of late.
Kenny
RATED AT
KO: Boxing is Ireland’s Number 1 sport in
regards to winning medals worldwide, do you
think the sport gets the recognition it deserves?
Kenneth Egan
Southpaw
MONTHLY