THE warm-up room never stops.
From morning until night boxers come and boxers go, wide smiles and fist pumps for the victors, bowed heads and consoling pats on the back all that is left for those whose dreams lie in tatters.
Such extremes lend a strange energy to a space made all the more claustrophobic by the revolving door of athletes and coaches coming and going, nationalities and cultures of all kinds crammed into one small sweatbox.
Last minute instruction or comforting words are issued amid a floor full of stretching bodies and shadow boxing, the low hum of activity persisting as battle either nears or ends.
Ireland have made the area at the back of the hall, to the right, their own since first setting foot inside Busto Arsizio’s E-Works Arena. Compared with other quarters where nerves are written all over faces, it is laid back; easy, in relative terms, considering what is at stake.
Once upon a time, Billy Walsh would have been quietly rallying the troops in the Irish corner as the World Olympic qualifier neared its business end. Now the Wexford man wears red, the stars and stripes of the USA on his chest, as he stands deep in conversation with a man he knows better than most.
Eyes bulging, swaying back and forth, Zaur Antia is in full flow in the midst of the madness, check hooks and left uppercuts being thrown into thin air while Walsh stands, hand in pockets, nodding.
Here they are, the still water and the stream.
It is a neat snapshot of a unique relationship that spans more than two decades - one that started out fighting for the same cause, and one that has also brought them into direct opposition on the sport’s biggest stage.
Yet through the best and, occasionally, worst of times, laughter and friendship have been – and remain - at the epicentre of everything.
“We always have a good positive relationship,” says Antia, “when we see each other, always a very positive atmosphere is created.
“Because we have a good past.”
The World Olympic qualifier near Milan is the latest international outpost that brings the pair together, and one of the most meaningful as Irish and American boxers bid to increase their quota heading to Paris this summer.
Difficulty finding a slot in competing schedules is overcome by the good will of both men and so, at the top floor café inside this unloved auditorium, black coffee and a cup of tea are the order of the day – you can guess which is for whom - as the Georgian masterminding Ireland’s charge and the Irishman spearheading America’s assault sit down in northern Italy to share their story.
**************
IT was in the Ringside club, at the back of the National Stadium, where Billy Walsh and Zaur Antia first laid eyes on each other. This was early 2003 and, as Gary Keegan sought to broaden Ireland’s horizons with the introduction of a High Performance unit, both had just interviewed for the role of head coach.
For Walsh it was a couple of hours up the road from Wexford. A serial national title winner, Seoul Olympian in 1988 having been controversially overlooked for Los Angeles four years earlier, he was already a well-known figure on the Irish boxing scene.
Antia, in stark contrast, was a total unknown.
He had flown in from Tbilisi, armed with only a handful of English words and a face unfamiliar to those who would decide his future. Yet he hadn’t travelled on a wing and a prayer either.
A Cork referee, Daniel O’Connell, couldn’t believe his eyes after watching the master at work during a trip to Antia’s home town of Poti, and recommended he throw his hat in the ring.
“So I made the decision – let’s try. Try to challenge myself.
“I was interested to see how can I deal with this new environment, new situation.”
Walsh had been in first and was already enjoying a beer in the Ringside when Antia arrived with friend Zorab Tibua, an international official and acquaintance of O’Connell.
The pair toasted the end of the interview process and, with Tibua translating, the connection was instantaneous.
“We just had, I don’t know... similar personalities. You could tell,” says Walsh.
“My Wexford English wouldn’t be the greatest either - in America they still struggle with me. But even without speaking, or knowing exactly what the other one was saying, it became quite intuitive.”
It was Walsh who got the job, starting work in February ‘03, but Antia’s was not a wasted trip.
Knowing Ireland needed a different dimension if the country was to compete at the top of the international game, the visionary Gary Keegan was able to sweet talk Sport Ireland into funding a technical coach too.
Antia took up his post in April. Ever since, Ireland’s fortunes have only gone in one direction.
“We were very lucky that we found this guy, because it can go wrong - it had gone wrong.
“We had Cuban coaches, Trotman Daley was in my day, that didn’t really work, then we had the great Nicholas Cruz... I had five years with Nicholas as captain of the team.
“But this guy, he has been the biggest success story in Irish sport, probably ever.”
Over the next 12 years it was a double act that would become synonymous with success, the pair’s working relationship drawing the best from all around as a golden generation including the likes of Katie Taylor, Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan emerged, delivering a slew of medals where the decade before had brought so few.
“You know what happened? I tell you,” says Antia, leaning in and pointing in Walsh’s direction, “body language - he always have very good fun.
“He say something, everybody smiling. I was watching this and I see how positive a situation he creates. He work very hard, but always it was good fun. Fantastic.
“I was happy, he was happy, the boxers – number one – they loved what he did. That was the main thing. When the boxer is happy, everybody is happy.”
“On our first trip we went to the European juniors in Poland, we were rooming together, and there was times I was going to jump out the window,” added Walsh, “not only was he trying have a conversation with me in English, but he was also trying to tell me a joke at the same time!
“But when we started to work on the gym floor, you don’t need language, because movement speaks for itself.
“If he wanted to implement something, I could translate it straight away without him saying a word.”
Yet, while the Georgian’s lack of English wasn’t an issue in the gym, it made life difficult in other areas. With his family staying in Georgia during those initial few years, adapting, integrating outside of boxing, presented obvious challenges.
Today, though, Walsh is in playful form.
He laughs when recounting the time Antia forgot where he was supposed to get off the bus and, unable to ask the driver for advice, just stayed onboard until many of the same sights started to look familiar.
“He was on this bus going around Dublin for half the day.”
Walsh is on a roll now.
Another occasion immediately springs to mind as soon as that tale has been told. Antia knows what is coming the second Walsh strikes up again.
“He was going to a graduation for his son, from DCU, so he got a taxi...”
“Oh no, oh no,” says Antia, shaking his head.
“So he tells the guy ‘DCU’ – next thing the taxi driver pulls up at f**king Phoenix Park, outside the zoo. And Zaur’s going ‘noooooo! Nooooo! DCU! Not the zoo!”
“Okay, okay, yes,” smiles Antia, “it is true - I don’t want to speak about it! Ah... that was fun.”
When it came to making strides towards the top of the boxing world, however, it was serious business.
Antia’s recruitment opened doors that, for years, had been remained slammed shut, allowing Ireland to learn from the best – and learn about the best, thanks to little bit of espionage.
“We couldn’t get behind the Iron Curtain until he came,” said Walsh.
“At that time Russia were number one, Billy and Gary ask the question – ‘can you connect us?’ Of course, I said, I had experience working with their coach.”
“One of the first times, we went to Chekhov,” recalls Walsh, “we had these heart rate monitors on the team, checking their blood lactates between rounds, checking a jump mat to see what force they were getting, and the Russians were very intrigued by that.
“So we said ‘if you want, we will take some of your boxers and give you the data?’ So there was a two-time world champion, an Olympic champion, and we did, we gave them their data – but we also had it!
“We knew exactly what intensity those guys were getting up to, and it gave us a benchmark.”
“When we first went to Russia, the plan was to train with best to become best,” adds Antia, “and that happened. We went to Russia, few times they came to us, but then when we started beating them - no more. They didn’t ask.”
**************
IRELAND’S upward trajectory sent the team to the 2008 Beijing Games in high spirits.
This would be Antia and Walsh’s first Olympics together and, having gone without a medal for 16 years, the levee finally broke as Ken Egan (silver), Darren Sutherland and Paddy Barnes (both bronze) ended the drought.
Yet, behind the scenes, Antia found himself in the middle of another fight. The Russo-Georgian war had broken out days before the Olympics got under way, leaving his family back home to flee in fear.
Unaware where they were, unable to get in touch, he was up through the night trying to find out any information at all.
“He didn’t know whether they were alive or dead,” says Walsh.
“We were sharing a room together and it was killing him, so I told him to stay in bed, I’ll get up and do the weigh-ins, you stay here, do whatever you need to do, and get your rest. It was a living nightmare for him. “His family were up in the mountains hiding, for days he couldn’t track them down...”
“Internet don’t work, no light,” sighs the Georgian, “it was very difficult. What do you imagine? You don’t know where your family is, war... thank God everything was okay.”
Experiencing, and surviving, those moments together solidified an already water-tight bond.
London 2012 brought further glory – Katie Taylor claiming gold, with Barnes and Michael Conlan collecting bronze. The talent pool was deepening, the culture improving, but already fault lines were beginning to appear.
For Walsh, ongoing frustrations with the Irish Athletic Boxing Association (IABA) ate away until, in 2015, he could take no more. With the Wexford man in his corner, Conlan had just become Ireland’s first ever male gold medallist at a World Championships but, within weeks, Ireland’s head coach was gone.
A media circus surrounded the whole episode, to the point it got the Liveline treatment, while Walsh was followed through Dublin airport by photographers as he jetted off for a new job, and a new life, in the United States.
“We faced a massive challenge from our own people. Really for my health, my mental health more than anything, I had to go,” he says.
“I didn’t want to go, but it was the best thing I’ve ever done.”
One of the first people he told was Antia.
“Look, when good team breaks, it is very difficult. It affects everyone. But at the same time I was thinking, I left my country as well.
“I continue work, it was a very difficult time, especially with Rio. We can’t forget.... in Rio we were robbed, you know what happened, but it takes time to create the same team when Billy was there.”
The Georgian had opportunities elsewhere too. This was the big fear; that, with Walsh gone, the dream team could be dissolved completely within a matter of years.
A stellar Ireland team had gone to Rio expecting medals, but returned with none. Regardless of the dubious circumstances that caused that situation in some cases, Antia couldn’t bring himself to walk away from the wreckage.
“I have offers,” he says.
“Since he left, after that I have many challenge. When Bernard [Dunne] came, he made easier, then when he was gone, again a challenge. That cost big energy.
“But after Rio, one thing was killing me – I don’t want to go as a loser.”
And so he stayed but the pair, so often side by side, would find themselves in opposite corners when the next Olympics rolled around.
In Rio, Walsh had privately planned to sidestep his coaching duties should USA’s brilliant bantamweight, Shakur Stevenson, come up against Michael Conlan in the semi-final. Vladimir Nikitin, with a little help from his friends, took that tricky situation out of Walsh’s hands.
But by the time Ireland’s Kurt Walker and America’s Duke Ragan would fight for a medal at the quarter-final stage in Tokyo, Walsh was too deeply embedded in the US system to turn his back.
Ragan prevailed by the narrowest of margins after a tense, technical battle. He should have been ecstatic, but it was impossible to shake the feeling of guilt as his one-time protégé walked away empty-handed.
“We brought Kurt onto the team for that day, to win a medal for Ireland at the Olympic Games, and here I was preventing that from happening.
“I broke down in the changing room after... that was terrible.”
A repeat has been avoided in Italy, but it always looms large, with every possibility again in Paris. Each time, though, Antia and Walsh shake hands. Just as in the Ringside club all those years ago, when vying for the same position, there is no animosity, no awkwardness.
After all, this is the name of the game they love. But for how much longer?
Both men are in their 60s now, and the demands of high performance sport are only increasing with time. Yet, in their own way, the fire still burns as brightly as ever.
“As long as God spares me,” says Walsh.
Expected to acquire American citizenship in the coming years, Team USA have already held discussions about staying on for the Los Angeles Games in 2028. Given the manner in which his LA dream was snatched away 40 years ago, there is an attraction to travelling full circle.
“There’s a bit of personal significance, because that broke my heart.
“Obviously there’s a couple of things around that, your own family at home... when are you going to grow up and settle down sort of thing! But that’s something I’d maybe like to finish before I go.
“You think it would be nice to get off the treadmill sometimes, but we love it. Unfortunately I didn’t reach the heights I wanted to as a boxer, but to get the opportunity to do it as a coach has been fantastic.
“Every day I wake up and thank God.”
Antia smiles and nods in agreement.
“All the time, that is how it should be.
“I want to say as well, our experience that we have today, if Ireland creates the pathway - remember all the time, we talk about the pathway? – from schoolboy to seniors, if that happens, Ireland will be the number one nation... 100 per cent.”
“If we had proper investment, I believe we’d be the best team in the world,” adds Walsh, “that was our vision.
“We finished fifth in London, and our motto from then was five to one... how are we going to go from five in London to one in Rio?
“Unfortunately we didn’t get to finish that off together - but we’re both still standing so we can’t complain too much.”
Laughter breaks out again before drinks are drained then back downstairs, back into the warm-up room, and back to what will always keep them together, no matter where in the world Billy Walsh and Zaur Antia might find themselves.