We met him at the airport.
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“He embarrassed Irish boxing and brought a bad thing to Irish boxing”.
Irish boxing tends to be one of the strongest areas at the Olympics and Conlan says that O’Reilly’s failed test shook the team and that they were all embarrassed by the news.
“We came here, we had a devastating start to this tournament”, he said.
“We had to deal with it”.
Irish boxing has taken a bit of a hit to it’s momentum as of late for various reasons, but Michael Conlan injected some palpable buzz back into the heart of the Irish boxing team today.
Conlan is the last Irishman standing in the ring after O’Reilly was sent home and SIX other hopefuls were beaten, including team leader Paddy Barnes.
Another big medal hope, light-heavyweight Joe Ward, was among the early casualties and Steven Donnelly, thus far, has been the only Irish fighter to reach the quarter-finals.
“Another thing I want to address is all you guys, every single media person here, keep going on about Billy Walsh”, he said after his unanimous decision win over Aram Avagyan.
The spotlight remained on the Ireland boxing team, and this Olympic campaign has proved hard for the entire team with five boxers getting eliminated in the early stages of the competition.
“I got dragged into a war when I could have easily out-boxed him”.
“I don’t think Billy’s loss is USA’s gain because I think more of the scoring system and the professional boxing style is suiting the American boxers more”.
Dad John, who was working Conlan’s corner alongside Irish head coach Zaur Antia, said he was “very happy” with his son’s performance – but, like Michael, is confident the best is yet to come.
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Russian Vladimir Nikitin now stands between Conlan and at least another bronze, the guaranteed reward for all semi-finalists.
