SILVER LINING

It’s a question that will never be anything more than hypothetical for the vast majority of us but: where would you keep yours? On the mantelpiece, in the sock drawer? Stored away safely in some vault? Maybe, as I reckon I’d likely do, you’d wear your Olympic medal around your neck the whole time – going down to the shops, or having a shower.

It’s a question I pose 23-year-old bantamweight boxer John Joe Nevin four months on from his first Olympic journey and one he can answer for real. Being a humble chap with the next goal already in mind, he is not, of course, spending his days strutting around his hometown of Mullingar showing it off to all and sundry.
“Nah,” he laughs, “The mother has that well stored under her pillow, she sleeps on it. As I’ve been saying to people when they ask me whether I’ve got it insured, who needs insurance when you have my mother’s right-hand waiting for the first person that puts their hands on it?!”
Sounds like John Joe has his formidable mater to thank for his heralded natural ability in the ring, a gift that made him the first Irishman to pick up two World Championship medals and saw him outclass a Dane, a Kazakh, a Mexican and a Cuban on his tough route to the Olympic podium last August.
Though he’s not one for showing off, the young pugilist did have a chance to bathe in the afterglow of the Games for a bit once he returned to Irish soil. Met by a crowd of 5,000 supporters in Westmeath, he was apparently bowled over (a rare occurrence indeed).
“It was a surprise,” Nevin admits. “They left us in our own little bubble over there. There was no media, we weren’t reading papers. After I lost the final, my father explained that there was a homecoming for me planned and I wanted it cancelled because I thought it would look ridiculous with about 50 people standing in the street! I got the shock of my life when I went through the town.”
Having been deflated after his final defeat, it was time for the party to start.
“I went mad for a couple of weeks. I had too much of a break really! Soaking it all up and living the life. That has to all change now though of course. I have to come back down-to-earth.”
Of course, the joy of his achievement was tempered by his ultimate 14-11 defeat at the hands of Britain’s Luke Campbell.
Speaking in the immediate aftermath of that loss, feelings of disappointment bubbled to the surface. He’d done the country proud, of course, but you could understand the raw emotion.
“Yeah, you get sucked in. You want to win it all. But if I was handed a bronze medal back in January – and they were telling me I’d take bronze – I would have grabbed it.”
It was coming so close that supplied the sting.
“I will say I hadn’t boxed at my best but everything went right for Luke. Luke’s a tremendous boxer. But in the fight before that, I beat the world champion [Lázaro Álvarez, 19-14] and it’s hard to come back down within the space of 12 hours or so and produce the same performance all over again.”
Nevin had thrown everything into the semi-final, winning all three rounds to secure silver.
“I was buzzing after that, because he’d been favourite to win it, and he’d beaten Luke Campbell in the World Championships. Luke got the best side of the draw, whereas I had to beat the ranked No. 1 lad. Having said that, you have to produce the same thing and I took it a little for granted against Luke. Because I’d beaten him well previously before that. Even when he’d defeated me in the World Championships, it was a controversial win for him.”
It’s nice to hear, however, that the fierce and now storied competition between the two stays inside the ropes.
“We’ve been keeping in touch since the Olympics. I think we’re gonna meet to catch up and have a drink together.”
The way John Joe tells it, in general, all the athletes gathered in London were keen to foster a warm, inclusive spirit. Rather than sitting staring at the walls, the village served to momentarily take your mind off the slog ahead.
“Once a day we would focus, that was it. Apart from that, we would want to enjoy ourselves, that makes you perform better. You’re not thinking about the job at hand the whole time. You need to relax, soak it up. ”
Nevin’s trainer, Billy Walsh, was somewhat critical of the perceived lack of Irish support for John Joe, in comparison to gold medalist Katie Taylor.
“Unfortunately, he didn’t have the support tonight,” Walsh commented from the ExCeL Arena after the final. “I don’t know where all the Irish went.”
Did he feel the weight of Taylor’s achievement the Thursday before, or notice a little less green in the crowd?
“It didn’t come into it. I’m well used to that kind of thing from my Travelling background but I was just focused on the job. At the end of the day, no-one in the crowd can help you win.”
It was his father who offered the words of reassurance needed to pick him back up.
“When the final was over, my father called me up and said, ‘You’re not a failure because of the silver medal’. I told him how disappointed I was, that I was a failure, and he just said, ‘You don’t realise what you’ve done. Wait until you get back.’”
Cue thousands of well wishers in a Dunnes Stores car park and an entire island waiting for his next move. Having always had the idea of a professional career in the back of his mind, he announced his plans to leave amateur boxing behind and join Amir Khan’s pro stable on RTÉ. But November saw Nevin make a dramatic U-turn.
The final defeat had lit a fire in him, a desire to return to the Olympics and give gold another go. If he’d defeated Campbell, he would have moved on.
“I’d always said I would like to be a world champion [at a professional level] and I still say it, but not right now. There’s more time for that. When I got out of that ring in London, I had a new goal and it was to go back and win the top prize.”
He cites the amateur team as another reason for hanging on.
“The high performance boxing team is brilliant. Ireland is one of the best boxing nations in the world, full stop. Great coaches, great staff. From psychologists to nutritionists, they all know their stuff. You get really well looked after by the Sports Council as well, so I think I’ve made the right decision.”
Eyes on Rio 2014 then.
“As I say, I have to knuckle down now. Get back into the gym. The first stage will be to defend my title in January, then qualify for the Games, which is one of the hardest parts.”
Whatever the future holds for John Joe Nevin, and it would appear to be bright, he will always have London.
“It’s been my dream to win an Olympic medal,” he concludes. “It’s changed my life completely. People wouldn’t have noticed me walking the streets before and I had two World Championships bronze medals, so it just shows you what the Olympics means to everyone. I don’t think it will ever sink in at all.”