WHILE Cathal O'Grady's hopes of making Ireland's Olympic team are still very much alive, the three boxers already selected for Atlanta are to be afforded unprecedented sparring facilities at training camps in Ireland and in the US.

The Olympic Council of Ireland's (OCI) decision to fund three extra fighters as sparring partners was welcomed at Saturday's IABA central council meeting.

All three competed in the recent European championships in Denmark. They are: bantam, Damian McKenna of Drogheda's Holy Family club, light welter John Morrissey, of Sunnyside Cork, and light middle Brian Crowley of Ennis.

They will accompany the three Olympians - Damien Kelly and Brian Magee (Holy Trinity) and Francis Barrett (Olympic Galway) - at the official camp in Belfast from June 7th-26th, and at camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida until July 15th. The sparring partners will return home at this stage, as the three Olympians move to Atlanta.

Heavyweight O'Grady, the only boxer at the weight in the European championships to win a bout and not to be picked for Atlanta, is first reserve for any vacancy. Damian McKenna also has a slight chance of making the team when the side is finalised on June 15th. Oceana and Africa are not claiming full quotas.

Meanwhile, disciplinary action is pending following reports of the national junior championships and the recent Ireland v Italy international in Caserta.

Commenting on the international report in which Irish boxers have been held responsible for alleged acts of vandalism in a hotel bedroom, the IABA president, Nick White, said he intends to clamp down on such matters and sort out the culprits.

He said there had been reports, on another occasion, of a swimming pool filled up with furniture, and that some boxers on the Italian trip were seriously overweight. All this is the result of inefficient management down the years and must be stamped out, said White.

Austin Carruth, a coach at the Barcelona Olympics when his son Michael won gold, said: "Listening to these reports, no sane man would go with a team."

The boxers held responsible for bad conduct were not named, but in the meantime the team manager and two coaches for the Italian match, which Ireland lost 6-4, are to consult with members of the technical rules committee.

A referee, Pat Sweeney of Connacht, claimed that a chair was thrown at him, but bit the ropes instead, when he was in charge of the National junior championship fight in which Paul Stephens was disqualified.

Stephens, along with his coach and a spectator, as well as referee Sweeney, have been summoned to appear before the association's disciplinary committee.

Finally, an invitation for three youth boxers to take part in a US international jubilee celebration tournament in Michigan was accepted.