A MONTH on from the Paris Olympics, Billy Walsh is still bristling.
“I’m struggling really bad to get over this,” comes the low voice on the other end of the line, “I just can’t get my head around it.
“Like, this was worse than Rio, and Rio was full of corruption.”
After spending some time back home in Wexford, Walsh returned to Colorado last Friday. Usually the restorative powers of Ireland’s east coast have him buzzing for what lies ahead but, in the wake of his seventh Olympic Games – sixth as a coach – the sense of disappointment, and disillusion, is hanging around longer than usual.
Since swapping Ireland for America nine years ago, the USA have won three medals at Rio 2016 – including gold for Claressa Shields – and four at the delayed Tokyo 2020. This time around, they left the French capital with just bronze for welterweight Omari Jones.
“When you’re having success, things are a lot easier.
“We won a medal but outside of that, I wouldn’t call it a successful tournament for us, so it is a little bit more difficult to go back… they were doing this without me, then we brought them to a different level – now we’re back down to the same thing.”
Despite his frustration, though, it is not the final medal tally that is truly eating at Walsh.
He’s long enough around the game to know the swings and roundabouts space boxing occupies once the world sport’s greatest roadshow rolls around at the end of every four-year cycle. Some you win, some you lose.
But this time felt different. Some they won, and still lost. Flyweight Roscoe Hill’s last 16 exit to French favourite Billal Bennama still has Walsh scratching his head.
So too the 3-2 split decision that went against Morelle McKane in her clash with Uzbekistan’s Navbakhor Khamidova, and super-heavy Joshua Edwards losing out to Italian Diego Lenzi. Outside of his own, Walsh saw plenty of others that, to him, made no sense.
This is a man who was representing Ireland at Seoul 1988 when Roy Jones jr was robbed against Park Si-hun, and his given his life to the sport. Following the removal of the International Boxing Association (IBA) from the organisation of the previous Games, the improved standard of officialdom in Tokyo offered some hope that, after the wreckage of Rio, boxing was at last moving in the right direction.
Now, though, Walsh has little faith in where it is headed.
“I don’t know whether it’s corruption or just bad judging… I’d like to think it was just bad judging, but the judging was atrocious,” said the 61-year-old.
“I’ve got feedback from my analysis guy, and some of the rounds we lost we actually hit the guy twice as many times as he hit us. Now how the f**k do you score that? At the end of the day that should be the main thing; if I hit you more than you hit me, I should win.
“We have all this criteria which is making it very subjective – technical, tactical awareness, domination… how do you measure that?
“And then the crowd is influencing what is going on too. How many 3-2 split decisions did the French get? We have put a piece in for the judges to wear noise-cancelling headphones.
“We saw with Kenny Egan in 2008, fighting China, we lost the fight by five and when we did the analysis on it, Kenny landed five more scoring shots – so there was a 10-shot swing. That’s when we were on the computer scoring.
“We’ve got three letters of apology from the IOC [International Olympic Committee] saying that judges have been removed, the referee has been removed for their actions in the contest… we were already out of the tournament, these kids have put 10 years of their life to get to an Olympic Games.”
Walsh will be 65 by the time Los Angeles 2028 takes place.
Having been controversially overlooked for a place on the Irish team that travelled to LA in 1984, it would be a neat piece of symmetry were his incredible Olympic journey to end there.
However, with so much uncertainty at the top of the sport, and increasing concern over whether boxing will even be at LA 2028 – having been left off the initial programme – it remains to be seen if he gets the opportunity to come full circle.
America are one of the leading voices on the World Boxing body, established last year in an attempt to secure boxing’s Olympic future. World Boxing’s aim is to prove it can take over the running of the competition from the IOC at Games to come.
However, despite having already recruited 42 countries from the IBA, their cause hit a major stumbling block last week when the influential Asian Boxing Confederation voted 21-14 against joining up.
“That’s a massive blow to the Olympic Games.
“It’s okay for these guys who don’t want to be in the Olympic Games, but I don’t think our sport will survive without it. The funding for the majority of sports, coming from the government, is looking at Olympic Games medals. At the end of the day that’s all they’re interested in.
“The Olympic committee in America funds ours, and we’re not going to be funded by them if we can’t win Olympic medals. It’ll be finished – it’ll go underground, and everybody will go pro.”
The plan, for now, is to see out his coaching career in the USA.
But, in the face of such disappointments, and returning to the start of a long road lined with potential potholes, what keeps bringing Billy Walsh back? A little bit of his younger self, that’s what.
“I’ve been one of those kids that have come up from a seven-year-old all the way through the ranks – I just know the joy and the passion and the love I had for the sport, and what it gave to me.
“Boxing has made me the person I am, and I want to see these kids have the enjoyment I had, and the pride and honour of being an Olympian. That’s what brings you back.
“It’s not the officials, it’s not all the bullshit that goes with it, it’s the boxers. I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved with 15 Olympic medals in my time… that’s what brings you back to it.”
