THE SIGH of relief yesterday evening in Trabzon came from the guys in the green shirts shouting at Paddy Barnes chasing Stefan Caslarov around the ring. The Beijing bronze medallist did exactly what he said he was going to do earlier in the week and became the first Irish boxer in Trabzon to qualify for London 2012.
His 17-9 win over Romanian Caslarov was never in doubt. Nor was the Irish light flyweight about his plans for the rest of the week. “Go on win gold here,” he said. “I’m fighting a Turk next. That will be good. Shut that crowd up.”
He has a good chance of doing both but if Billy Walsh is accurate he’s probably going to have to pick up his performance to more than “50 per cent”, the level at which the Irish coach believes he’s idling.
Barnes for all of his 49 kilos is a big brash, confident, opinionated and likable character from Belfast who is comfortably the smallest on the team but holds a definable presence around the arena. Everyone listens.
But Walsh is not too easy a pushover to allow his boxers’ minds to wander and as Barnes briefly sucked up his evening’s success and the second Olympic Games of his career, Walsh was also pumping out doses of realism. “Fantastic achievement,” said Walsh. “He hasn’t had the best of years but we sat down and put a plan together and he’s responding magnificently to it. All the baggage is behind him. We’re still struggling with his performance but his performance was good enough to get him to London. I think there’s another 50 per cent in him.
“He lost his way for a while. He stopped learning. Having won an Olympic medal and having won the Europeans he thought he knew everything. We had this over a few years. He said I’ll keep my engine right, I know what to do. But he began to learn again because he realised he wasn’t learning. The last eight weeks we really pushed, got enough improvement in him to get him over the line here.”
Barnes joins the three already-qualified boxers, Michael Conlan, Darren O’Neill and John Joe Nevin in London. The number to qualify for the Olympics was set at five so the team target remains alive. Barnes won the first round 5-3 after tripping in the opening seconds but motored in the second three minutes unloading body shots and combinations to take a 12-6 lead, then seamlessly extend his industry and his lead for a largely carefree 17-9 win. Afterwards he was showing some signs of humility.
“I was very nervous. I was a bit edgy,” said Barnes. “I’m just glad I got it out of the way. The first time I came out and he hit me a body shot. I’ll tell you what. I couldn’t even breathe. I looked at the referee and went Ughhh . . . Another Olympics, ah yeah and hopefully another medal with a better colour.”
TRABZON DETAILS
YESTERDAY
60kg: David Oliver Joyce (re) lost to Evaldas Petrauskas (Lith 19-10;
69kg: Adam Nolan (Ire) bt Tamerian Abdullayev (Azer) 17-13.
49kg: Paddy Barnes (Ire) bt Stefan Caslarov (Rom) 17-9.
91kg: Tommy McCarthy (Ire) bt Jozsef Darmos (Hun) 16-7.
SATURDAY
Semi-finals
49kg: P Barnes (Ire) v F Pehlivan (Tur). 91kg: T McCarthy v V Cheles (Mol). 69kg: A Nolan v I Gheorghe (Rom).
