LORD COE swept around the Olympic Park yesterday in east London as though it was his own stadium, the arching velodrome a stately gazebo in his almost finished estate and the gull-winged Aquatic Centre an exotic piece from the Spice Islands.
The double Olympic gold medallist has lost count of the times he has paced across the plot of land that was up to a few years ago bubbling with toxic chemicals, arsenic-laced sludge and waste water. London’s 500 acres of pride nears completion with its landscaped jogging tracks and intersecting canals, the main stadium now a moated island.
But Coe’s belief in the project and the athletes is freely and infectiously offered. The Newham Borough, he says, was the area around Stratham that had been on its own lugubrious podium as top in the UK for disadvantage and unemployment. He talks aspirationally about legacy and what the Games will leave behind. Mostly though it is about people, the athletes. He looks like one who could still burn 800 metres.
But when London was awarded the games, one of his first ports of call was to Dublin, Britain’s political ally in the bidding wars. Ireland is not far from the double Olympic gold medallist’s thinking.
He nods his head in agreement about the Irish woman who has been curiously respected if not celebrated in her own country. A prince of the running track and a Tory in the House of Lords, it’s almost disconcerting when he talks of a female boxer, who has yet to qualify for London 2012. He nods his head at the mention of Katie Taylor.
“She could be the poster girl of these Games,” he says. He knows because he recently spoke to the president of the International Amateur Boxing Association, Mr Wu. Taylor’s name came up.
There are others in London who see Taylor as playing a leading role in the summer block-buster. Billy Walsh, Ireland’s boxing coach, is also in the capital. He offers caution. Like Coe, he speaks of the three-times world champion almost reverentially. Walsh knows too well what Ken Egan suffered when he returned home from Beijing with a silver medal and plenty of people to pat his back.
He also understands the pitfalls and speaks of Taylor in the Caribbean at the World Championships in September last year. “In Barbados she nearly lost. She got an injury, took too much Diaphene, got diarrhoea, weighed in two kilos below the weight and nearly lost the fight,” says Walsh.
“Anything is possible, particularly in boxing. She’s only one punch away from defeat. To my mind, she’s the best athlete Ireland has ever produced. She may not be recognised until after she’s gone, but she’s five times a European champion in a 10-year reign, three times a World Champion. I don’t think anyone else will ever achieve that.
“Not one of our male boxers lives the high-performance life that Katie lives. She prepares with the men. We see her on a daily basis training with the men, preparing with the men, sparring with the men and she’s equal to them, sometimes better.”
Egan’s story is not old but has become legendary due to having been put into a biography. While boxing has held up its hand and confessed to planning everything but the life change that accompanies winning, Walsh cannot accept the sport was entirely at fault. But Egan’s binge in New York, when he should have been in Dublin captaining the Irish team, caused concern. Boxing has learned from it.
“No, no, those traits were there. Did boxing bring it on? No, Ken became a celebrity overnight and he loved it, he enjoyed it. Like a normal red-blooded man, he got caught up in it and it has hard to come off it. Thankfully he’s well out of it now and it’s 14 or 15 months since he touched a drink.
“We didn’t think of it (his winning) after it. We thought of having the success but who thought of what you had to deal with in the aftermath? We just thought it was ‘well done, lads, good luck and enjoy it’. We didn’t think anything would happen but people’s lives changed completely.”
The boxing arena is away from the main Olympic Park. It is a less inspiring profile on the London horizon than the curves and bends in Newham but it might be where Irish voices will be heard loudest.
“There’s a lot of expectation around her but she hasn’t qualified,” adds the coach. “There’s 10 days in China next May (World Championships) and if she’s injured or out of form there could be something similar to what happened (in Barbados). Yes there is that expectation on her if she doesn’t win a gold medal like Sonia in her day. But we’re well aware of that, she’s well aware of that, her father is well aware of it, we’re just focusing on what we can control.”
