“This is all I’ve wanted! This is what I’ve fought for! It felt unreal when the referee raised my hand and I had secured a place at the Olympics in Rio,” said a delighted David Oliver Joyce when he spoke to Westmeath Topic, surrounded by family and friends at his house in Ardleigh Vale, Mullingar, on Monday evening of this week, 18 April, on his return to Mullingar.
By Paul O’Donovan
Having suffered bitter disappointment at losing out and not qualifying for the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, 29-years-old Joyce was over the moon at having booked a seat on the plane to Rio, Brazil, next August.
He did so the difficult way though, capturing a European bronze medal on the way, having fought in the European boxing finals in Samsun, Turkey last week. Joyce won his first two fights, but then lost out to British boxer Joseph Cordona in a controversial bout. However, he then defeated Turkish boxer Volkan Gokcek to win the bronze medal in the 60kg weight bout last Sunday afternoon. Victory here secured a place at the Olympics for Joyce, and he could not hold back his joy in the ring, falling to his knees and reaching towards the sky.
“I dedicate this win to my granny; she passed away less than a year ago and always wanted me to be an Olympian, and now I have realised her dream and my dream,” said Joyce.
However, Joyce clearly bore the scars of some bruising encounters in the ring, sporting two black eyes and a cut over the right eye, which needed nine stitches, not to mention a cut on the forehead (from a headbutt) which required six stitches.
“It was worth it all, though,” said David Oliver, as he was congratulated by a large number of family members, relatives and friends on his return home to Mullingar.
“The pressure is off now. I can relax for a while. I just want to spend a few days with my family and my kids. I’ve missed them so much,” said Joyce, beaming with delight at his achievement in reaching the Olympics.
A DREAM COME TRUE
“This is something I’ve wanted ever since 2007 so thankfully my dream has come true. It is a great feeling to even say the words – I am going to the Olympic Games. I had four tough fights and I had to fight to the very end in each of the four fights. And the marks didn’t make it any easier,” said David, pointing towards a deep gash on his forehead and the stitches over his right eye. “The cuts kept opening up but we had a fantastic doctor in Jim out there with us and he did a fantastic job on me out there. I think I have a total of fifteen stitches.”
“In my first fight I boxed a Georgian and he is rough with the head and I got a few head butts, and a cut above the eye, so it all started off from there and then in my next fight I had to fight a Belarussian boxer, a world medallist, so it was all very tough.”
“We thought we got a bad decision against the British boxer; we thought we had beaten him but thankfully I did the job right the next day. When I fought against the British boxer, I probably didn’t perform to my standard, but I got in the ring for the next bout and proved myself when it counted.”
“It is hard to beat a Turk in his own back yard, it doesn’t happen that often, so to beat a Turk in his own back yard is unbelievable for me. At times like that, negative thoughts can begin to enter your head about how difficult it can be, but I just stuck to my game plan and it paid off.”
I had two cuts from the previous fights and had them stitched up, but then I got another cut, but the Turk also had a cut over his eye, so it was a very tough fight. But I wasn’t worried at all about the eye, I just wanted to get the win,” said a delighted Joyce.
GREAT COACH
Speaking of the moment he realised he had achieved his dream, Joyce said, “When the referee raised my arm to announce I had won, it was emotional, I didn’t know if it was real or not, but I was just over the moon and my coaches and back room team were going mad celebrating in the corner,” said David, who also went on to thank his coach, Dominic O’Rourke. “Dominic has been great. As a coach he has been there for 162 different titles at the St Michael’s Club, Athy, where I go to train and box; it is where I have been going for years and Dominic is a legend as a coach. He has coached two Olympians now in Johnny Joyce and myself so he deserves so much credit,” said Joyce.
HOMECOMING
David was overwhelmed by the large number of supporters waiting to greet him outside his home on Monday evening. “The support has been fantastic. I was not expecting this, I was expecting to go home and have a meal and go to bed for a few hours and have a few painkillers so I wasn’t expecting this, I was shocked to be greeted like this,” as David looked around at hundreds of supporters that had gathered to congratulate him, shake his hand, get their photos taken, and share in the celebrations, as the champagne began to flow amongst the Irish flag and banners that were erected to celebrate his great achievement.
But for the moment David plans to relax and spend time with his family. “I’ve missed my family and my kids so much over the past three weeks, so now I just want to spend some time with them. So I will take a few weeks off and then go back boxing and training again, and then there is the World Championships in Baku in June, but the real pressure is off now and I will keep tipping away until I get my programme in order, to train for the Olympic Games,” said a beaming Joyce.
Joyce now joins his Moate cousin, Joe Ward, who qualified months ago, on the Irish Olympic team for Rio, with four other Irish boxers. According to boxing observers, both Ward and Joyce are medal prospects.
In the Olympics in 2008 and 2012, Johnny Joyce and John Joe Nevin wore the Irish singlets with pride, and the latter boxer brilliantly won a silver medal in London – the biggest Olympic achievement so far by a Westmeath amateur boxer.
Now at the Rio Olympics in August next, Mullingar and Westmeath will again be represented by Mullingar’s David Oliver Joyce and Joe Ward from Moate.
GREAT MULLINGAR
TRADITION
The town of Mullingar has a remarkable boxing tradition. Many decades ago, in 1948, boxer “Maxie” McCullagh was European champion and represented Ireland in the Olympic Games – the first Westmeath boxer ever to achieve that honour and Mullingar also produced other boxing notables, like the great heavyweight, local farmer Kit Cole, and people like Eddie “Killer” Byrne. It was in the past decade that the town again produced world class boxers, like Johnny Joyce and John Joe Nevin. There were others too, like David Oliver Joyce, but though good enough to gain Olympic selection since 2007, he had that honour cruelly denied him. In 2012, he was within 8 seconds of Olympic qualification for the 2012 London games when the referee harshly penalised him for a foul, and the two points he lost cost him selection. Before the Beijing Games, it was a similar sort of story.
That harsh 2012 result led him to contemplate retiral four years ago, but thankfully, David was drawn back into the game via the new AIBA pro series. He’s been eyeing the 2016 Olympics since then, and now his big dream is realised, and he can dream of his medal chances in August. He’s a sportsman who really deserves success.
