The Olympics Thread

[Mickado]

Unfortunate for Paddy, but he boxed his heart out.

Worst case senario is that this is equal to our best Olympics ever, gift.

Also, Nevin's final is at 8.45 tomorrow so those travelling to Tallaght will still be able to see it.

[Dave Cahill]

Ogogo better win, I've been eating Subway for months and I'm still a tubby ballix.

[Mickado]

Have you also got a "fenfitife mouff ok"?

[Peg Leg]

I must admit that I thought that on countback that Zou had it, he was simply more precise, and threw more punches that could be considered to be scoring punches by one or more judges. Barnes certainly threw a lot more punches, but Zou had more precision - more punches were aimed at the scoring zones in my opinion. I felt that Barnes won the 2nd which the judges scored a draw, but once it went to the countback, that was it I thought.

Felt it was in the bag for Zou when Jimmy started gibbering about judges reserving a "Special Point for Aggression" (which he awarded to PB)..... jesus wept, he is pants.
Felt sorry for Paddy, but was delighted that he has improved exponentially since his demoralising defeat in Beijing.
Well done John Joe, a great fight- no great brawl just one and out. Great to see how often he got the right over, considering he was fighting a south paw!

Amateur boxing is a great technical game to watch!!

[Peg Leg]

BTW, how does a man of JJ's height maintain a weight of 56kg's?????
Whatever about training to be a good boxer and all it entails, the dedication (every bledin day of their lives) that these athletes have is unfathomable!

[Hippo]

Felt it was in the bag for Zou when Jimmy started gibbering about judges reserving a "Special Point for Aggression" (which he awarded to PB)..... jesus wept, he is pants.

Magee has been unbelievable. I know he's been there forever, but he's astonishingly poor.

[tackle-bag]

Felt it was in the bag for Zou when Jimmy started gibbering about judges reserving a "Special Point for Aggression" (which he awarded to PB)..... jesus wept, he is pants.

Magee has been unbelievable. I know he's been there forever, but he's astonishingly poor.

The thing is he's been sh!te forever too. I can't recall ever hearing him make a single insightful comment. He has a decent memory for an old coot, but that doesn't come close to justifying his continued presence in the commentary box.

In terms of analysis, I really cannot abide that condescending pr!*k Mick Dowling. If he smugly refers to himself as an "expert" one more time, the remote is going to go through the TV screen. He also keeps trying to claim credit for the boxers' achievements saying stuff like "this is what we work on in the high performance unit", but I can't find any evidence that he has coached or trained any of them.

Bernard Dunne, on the other hand, is a pleasure to listen too. Always articulate, insightful and clear, he's a genuine patriot too. He's not averse to throwing in the cúpla focail either, which I think is a welcome addition to the dialogue on a national broadcast.

[totalrandomer]

I don't get the Mick hatred. You obviously don't like his manor. Fair enough.

He knows his stuff though and has been around boxing for nearly 50 years. I have only heard him refer to "us so called experts"

I agree on Dunne and Magee. Totally.

[tackle-bag]

I don't get the Mick hatred. You obviously don't like his manor. Fair enough.

He knows his stuff though and has been around boxing for nearly 50 years. I have only heard him refer to "us so called experts".

That's fitting typo in the context of a discussion about a man who thinks that he is Lord of one!

I understand your point about Dowling, I just don't agree. In my view, being around for a long time counts for nothing unless you are able to provide some genuine insight on foot of your experience. Dowling was singularly incapable of even explaining how the "countback" worked this afternoon, and was exposed as a spoofer in my view.

So if he's not there for his technical knowledge, it begs the question as to why he's there at all? How many World Championship/Olympic medals did he win? Zero. How many World/Olympic Champions has he trained? Zero. (I'm open to correction on any of the foregoing, but I can't find evidence to the contrary online)

[mikey]

Katie Taylor you absoloute hero

Well done and thank you for today

Totally - brilliant stuff - second gold medlaist for Irish Boxing after my cousin Michael Carruth in Barcelona. superb.

Is he your cousin? He's from the same area as me, used to play football with his brother Fergal many moons ago.

he is indeed (by marriage) - his dad Austin (sadly not with us now) was the brother of my aunts husband Syl (also sadly not with us) - both very very much missed. Syl managed Hill 16 for many years and was sports mad completely - loved Leinster Rugby and we loved taking him to the games. Seeing Michael carrying the Olympic torch, plus all the talk of his gold now because of Katie makes us sad that Syl is not here to see this. He was so proud of Michael (they took Jackie Charltons picture down in the Hill when Michael won the medal!!(much to JC's amusement when he next went in!!) and would have loved to have seen Katie.

Such is life.

[Dave Cahill]

I don't get the Mick hatred. You obviously don't like his manor. Fair enough.

He knows his stuff though and has been around boxing for nearly 50 years. I have only heard him refer to "us so called experts".

That's fitting typo in the context of a discussion about a man who thinks that he is Lord of one!

I understand your point about Dowling, I just don't agree. In my view, being around for a long time counts for nothing unless you are able to provide some genuine insight on foot of your experience. Dowling was singularly incapable of even explaining how the "countback" worked this afternoon, and was exposed as a spoofer in my view.

So if he's not there for his technical knowledge, it begs the question as to why he's there at all? How many World Championship/Olympic medals did he win? Zero. How many World/Olympic Champions has he trained? Zero. (I'm open to correction on any of the foregoing, but I can't find evidence to the contrary online)

I think Mick must have cockblocked you or something!

Apart from his boxing career, which was long and successful, the reason we have such success in boxing at this level is because of the structures he was a key architect of. The HPU, the Elite Squad, the NCC, have/had the Dowling fingerprints on them. When Mick describes himself as an expert, its not him being condescending, he doesn't have a condescending bone in his body, its a simple statement of fact. I would doubt that there is anyone in Irish boxing specifically, or in amateur boxing in general, that has the depth of knowledge or experience of Mick Dowling. You mightn't have understood his explanation of the countback system, he was somewhat convoluted, but it was entirely accurate.

Hes not entirely innocent of us winning three Heineken Cups either. He was brought in to teach the Leinster coaches the boxing conditioning techniques that Leinster Rugby use as part of the wider programme.

[totalrandomer]

You mightn't have understood his explanation of the countback system, he was somewhat convoluted, but it was entirely accurate.

That was my feeling too.

No boxing expert myself, but I always felt he was very knowledgeable. I think he can be a little guarded in his comments sometimes unlike Dunne (who we all love partly because he speaks his mind)

But never got a bad vibe off him. (Mick)

[tackle-bag]

You mightn't have understood his explanation of the countback system, he was somewhat convoluted, but it was entirely accurate.

Don't want to provoke a protracted discussion about this, as evidently there are differing views on the guy, but Michael Lester set him a straight-forward task of explaining to the viewers at home how the system works. I was "a viewer at home", and although I have many flaws I don't think a learning difficulty is one of them, and yet I still couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. He spent about 10 seconds explaining the "countback" in nebulous and uncertain terms before moving on to detail what happens if the "countback" is equal, which was irrelevant to the question posed. True to form, he managed to get a dig in about "Joe Soap sitting at home on the couch" in the process.

Give me Bernard Dunne any day of the week, the man is a class act. Even Kenny Egan would be preferable from my perspective, if only we could sort out his clobber and get him to stop looking like he's about to burst into tears.

[totalrandomer]

You mightn't have understood his explanation of the countback system, he was somewhat convoluted, but it was entirely accurate.

Don't want to provoke a protracted discussion about this, as evidently there are differing views on the guy, but Michael Lester set him a straight-forward task of explaining to the viewers at home how the system works. I was "a viewer at home", and although I have many flaws I don't think a learning difficulty is one of them, and yet I still couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. He spent about 10 seconds explaining the "countback" in nebulous and uncertain terms before moving on to detail what happens if the "countback" is equal, which was irrelevant to the question posed. True to form, he managed to get a dig in about "Joe Soap sitting at home on the couch" in the process.

Give me Bernard Dunne any day of the week, the man is a class act. Even Kenny Egan would be preferable from my perspective, if only we could sort out his clobber and get him to stop looking like he's about to burst into tears.

Wow you really seem to take a strong dislike to people for some arbitrary reasons sometimes.

My kids do that a lot too. They seem to "HATE" people sometimes for reasons that mystify me.

Not equating you to my kids now. Just something you seem to have in common.

[hugonaut]

"Mick Dowling is one of Ireland’s most respected boxing coaches having served as a member of the National Coaching Committee for 10 years ... He is currently senior coach of the Mount Tallant Boxing Club and IT Tallaght Boxing Squad ... he boxed 50 times in the green vest of Ireland competing at both the 1968 Mexico and 1972 Munich Olympic Games. He is also the proud owner of 2 European Bronze Medals and still holds the record for 8 National titles in the same weight division."

[source: http://evolvecoachingandexercise.com/team/ ]

Mick is dead sound, an extremely nice fellah in person. Runs a smashing little sports shop in Terenure that caters very well for runners and boxers [in particular]. He still puts a hell of a lot into coaching young boxers from all around Tallaght, Kimmage, Terenure, Mount Tallant, Crumlin etc., and also opens his doors to so-called "white-collar" boxers preparing for charity fights. Couldn't say enough in his favour.

[tackle-bag]

Right, I have now firmly decided that the scoring system in boxing is a complete joke. I'm not saying that I thought Conlan won that fight, because the third round was very clear, but some of the scoring was off the wall. The Cuban didn't throw 6 punches in the first round, let alone 6 scoring ones. Also would have had Conlan as the clear winner of the second round. You can argue that it was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but the reason that Conlan was so open in the final round was owing to the position he was in on the scoreboard.

[tackle-bag]

Double post.

[Donny B.]

Conlan stood toe to toe with the Cuban far too much. Up against a puncher that strong and accurate, it was always a doomed tactic. Magee's commentary was hilariously one-eyed.

[Broken Wing]

Lovely fight from John Joe Nevin, tactically it was precisely the right fight to beat the cuban. Minimised the effect of his left hook almost entirely

I had to listen to JJ's fight on BBC 5 Live as I was driving. Buncey was well impressed calling it the greatest performance by an Irish boxer he had ever seen, better than Carruth and McCullough. They seemed concerned about Campbell's chances in the final.

Hopefully if JJ wins the gold we'll be allowed celebrate it for a few days even if it's not as big a deal to some Irish people as people from other countries winning medals.

Any idea when Bray are putting up the Katie statue? Is it true the new bridge over the Liffey is being named the Golden Kate bridge?

[Dave Cahill]

McCullough was a fantastic boxer, so thats pretty high praise!