IABA promise Olympic review after “challenging” Rio Games
The Irish Athletic Boxing Association last night released a statement which admits that Irish boxing’s medal-less Olympics in Rio were “challenging,” and reiterated their promised to conduct a full review of the 2012-2016 period for the High Performance Unit.
The review will be done in conjunction with Sport Ireland, and any recommendations will be incorporated into the IABA’s strategy for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
The statement in full reads:
The Irish Athletic Boxing Association (IABA) welcomes home its seven boxers and support staff from the Rio Olympic Games. For each of them competing in the Olympic Games; it was the culmination of years of training, competition and dedication to the sport of boxing.
IABA and the Irish boxing community are immensely proud of each of them and their efforts in Rio. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them, their families and clubs for all their support for each of the boxers. We would also like to give special thanks to our coaches Zaur Anita, Eddie Bolger and John Conlan and also to the Team Manager, Joe Hennigan and all of the support staff involved in these games.
The on-going welfare of our Olympic boxers is a key priority for IABA. We hope to retain as many of them as possible within the High Performance Programme and will look to meet with each of the boxers in the coming weeks to discuss their future plans as well as any support we can provide.
The Rio Olympic Games were challenging for the Irish Athletic Boxing Association. It is the first time since the Athens Games in 2004 that boxing has not won a medal at the Olympic Games. As previously announced IABA are committed to conducting a full review of our High Performance Programme which will cover every detail of the programme from London 2012 up to and including all the preparations for Rio 2016.
We have agreed to conduct this review in conjunction with Sport Ireland as part of their overall review of the Rio Olympic Cycle. We can confirm that all of the boxers, coaches and management who have been involved with the Programme over the last four years will be asked to input into the review process.
The IABA intends to incorporate any recommendations that emerge from the review into our 2020 Strategy, the development of which has been underway for a number of months under the Chairmanship of Donagh Morgan, recently retired Assistant Secretary General, Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.
