Coach in exile Billy Walsh closes in on elusive gold medal with US boxers

Kurt Walker of Ireland with USA coach Billy Walsh after his men's featherweight quarter-final bout with Duke Ragan of USA at the Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo. Photo: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Sean McGoldrick

August 03 2021 02:30 AM

Billy Walsh now knows how soccer legend Denis Law felt when he back-heeled a goal for Manchester City on the last full day of the 1973-’74 English League season which help send his beloved Manchester United into the then second division.

Law played for United for 11 seasons and his spiritual home is Old Trafford. Walsh works for US Boxing, but his heart has never left Ireland.

On Sunday on Tokyo he choked up when asked to describe his feelings after US featherweight Duke Ragan secured a 3-2 split decision over Ireland’s Kurt Walker in the bronze medal fight at the Olympics.

Later he sent me a text: “Sean, it’s the hardest thing I ever done. 2012 we brought Kurt into the Irish program for this day, and I was part of preventing him achieve that. Kurt has been the stand-out in this division at the Olympics, his coaches are the best in the world. They were my colleagues for 12 years. It’s been an emotional roller coaster.”

When he joined USA Boxing, Walsh probably knew that this day would come. Indeed, it looked on the cards five years ago in Rio when Michael Conlan and Shakur Stevenson looked on course to meet in the bantamweight semi-final.

Walsh planned not to work in Stevenson’s corner had he faced Conlan who he had coached to win a world title in 2015 just before he quit as Ireland’s head coach. In the event a disgraceful judges’ decision in the quarter-finals saved him.

It was particularly poignant that Walker was the Irish fighter involved. He was one of Walsh’s special projects back when he was Irish head coach. He invited Walker to join the elite boxers in Dublin for training prior to the 2012 Olympics. Walker was still at school, but Walsh recognised that the Lisburn youngster was a special talent.

Ultimately, Walsh had left for the US before Walker blossomed at elite international level. But the links they forged were never severed. Nobody would have been more pleased than Walsh had Walker come home from Tokyo with an Olympic medal.

Seven years down the road it’s pointless rehashing the background to Walsh’s shock exit. The Board of Directors of the IABA really should have moved heaven and earth to keep the Wexford man. He was the best in the world and allowing him to go at the time was a mystifying decision.

Bernard Dunne has done well – particularly at these Olympics. But taking over from Walsh was like being the next Kilkenny hurling manager when Brian Cody retires.

But now Walsh is involved in a much bigger project where the stakes are higher. The USA last won a gold medal in male boxing at Athens in 2004 when Andre Ward was crowned light heavyweight champion.

Since then they have won just three male medals: Deontay Wilder bronze in 2008 and Shakur Stevenson (silver) and Nick Hernandez (bronze) at the 2016 Games when Walsh was in charge for the first time.

Despite failing to win any medals at the Rio Games, Irish male boxers have won six Olympic medals (two silver and four bronze) in the same time span. Walsh was involved in all those successes. So it is hardly a surprise that US Boxing came hunt for him in 2015.

Could an outsider restore some pride in US boxing? After all this was a country which at the 1976 Games had won a five golds, a silver and a bronze, while the 1984 team scooped nine gold, a silver and a bronze at the LA Games which Russia, Cuba and all the then Eastern Bloc nations had boycotted.

The only medal missing from Walsh’s coaching CV is an Olympic gold. Kenneth Egan was the victim of a home-town decision in 2008 in Beijing, while John Joe Nevin failed to perform in the London decider.

Walsh could be forgiven for thinking four years’ work had been wasted when three of his star male boxers, Keyshawn Davis, Troy Isley, and Ragan, left the squad and turned professional after the 2020 Games were postponed.

But then Covid-19 intervened again to save his dream last spring when the Pan American Olympic qualifying tournament, which was scheduled for Buenos Aires, was cancelled.

Davis, Ragan and Isley were all eligible for Tokyo again based on the ranking points they had earned before they turned professional.

Davis, Ragan and super heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr, who beat a Cuban in the quarter-final, have already secured Olympic bronze medals in Tokyo at the time of writing.

As for the coach, as one US boxing official remarked: “When we got Billy, we hit a home run.”