THE swiping, southpaw right hands of Svetlana Staneva proved too much of a deterrent as Michaela Walsh became the eighth of 10 boxers to fall at the first hurdle in Paris.
It was a frustrating afternoon for the west Belfast woman, who also bowed out early in Tokyo three years ago after losing a close fight to Irma Testa. This time around, penetrating Staneva’s jab proved a huge problem as Walsh couldn’t find the room to make her flurries pay.
When she watches the fight back, the 31-year-old might wonder if she could have forced the pace a bit more, tried to make life uncomfortable for the Bulgarian eighth seed after slipping to a 5-0 unanimous decision defeat which leaves Kellie Harrington as the last Irish boxer standing.
“I felt it was a good enough performance - very, very cagey first round,” she said.
“Coming back in 5-0 down was a bit frustrating and I was sort of chasing it after that. I felt I had a very good second and third round and felt the scoring didn’t reflect how close the fight actually was. “I could have thrown a lot more punches but I was wary because when I was going in with my flurries she was very good on the counter, just as I was when she came at me. I felt it was a close fight.
“She’s a great opponent, a current European [Games] champion and I wish her all the best and hope she goes all the way. She’s a great person as well and I was unfortunate probably to meet her in the first round.”
The pair were deep in conversation after the fight ended, and Walsh smiled when asked what was said.
“She hit me with an elbow so she said ‘I was cheating, I’m sorry’, so I said ‘give me the decision then!’”
Staneva goes on to face Yu Ting Lin of Chinese Taipei – one of two female boxers at this Olympics who, the International Boxing Association (IBA) claim, previously failed gender eligibility tests.
Despite their claim the IBA – officially banished from running the Olympic boxing competition by the International Olympic Committee last year - have been unable to provide evidence of those tests thus far.
It was a debate Walsh wasn’t prepared to be drawn into.
“I haven’t been paying attention to any of that, I’ve just been focusing on myself.
“I’ve known I was boxing the Bulgarian from last Thursday so I’ve been staying away from all that, not focusing on anything. The only thing I was focusing on was the Bulgarian.”
Walsh has had to wait patiently in the wings since that draw was made, watching eight of her team-mates – including younger brother Aidan – exit the competition, with flyweight Moorehouse in particular on the wrong end of a poor decision.
“It’s been long and tough but I’m a professional, I do everything right, I live the right lifestyle, I was just trying to conserve my energy as much as possible, training when I needed to train, staying out of the sun… I was just trying to do everything right.
“I only went over to the fights once, the day Aidan was fighting, then after that I just stayed in, trying to save my energy and focus on the Bulgarian.
“I’m obviously very disappointed for a lot of my team-mates. I feel a lot of them were really hard done by - most of them actually.
“I don’t know what way they’re judging, it just doesn’t seem to be any consistency with the judging. That’s out of our control.
“All we can control is what we do in the ring and whatever the five judges decide outside of that’s all that can happen.”
Regardless of what happened in Paris, Walsh – like Aidan – can always call herself a two-time Olympian. Eventually thoughts will turn to what comes next, with boxing’s place at the 2028 Los Angeles Games under serious threat.
For now, though, the Commonwealth Games gold medallist has only one thing on her mind.
“I’m not sure, I’ll speak to the coaches,” she said, “I’ll get a Chinese and a can of Coke and I’ll be happy.”
