Gary Lennon’s new documentary Broken Rings captures the full extent of Irish boxing’s disastrous 2016 Olympics in Rio
From the aftermath of Billy Walsh's departure as team coach, to Michael O'Reilly's failed drugs test to Michael Conlan's shocking loss to Vladimir Nikitn, Lennon captured all in new two-part doc series
FILMMAKER Gary Lennon went to Rio hoping to catch the greatest triumph in Irish sports – but it turned into Irish boxing’s Apocalypse Now.
As Martin Sheen’s Williard said in the Francis Ford Coppola classic: "I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it yet."
A long-term project, both for Lennon and the Irish Athletic Boxing Association’s High Performance Unit, things had seemed rosy by October 2015 with the Olympic Games in Rio approaching.
Michael Conlan had just been crowned bantamweight kingpin at the World Championships, the first Irishman in history to top the podium.
The spearhead of Billy Walsh’s "medal machine", Conlan wasn’t the only member of this brilliant team being heavily backed to win gold in Brazil.
But within days of arriving home from Doha, Walsh announced he had quit the Irish set-up to take over sleeping giants the USA.
Fed up with a lack of autonomy in his role, and dissatisfied with the contract offer on the table in Dublin, the Wexford guru walked away from a job he had occupied since 2003 when the HPU was founded.
Suddenly, his and Ireland’s plan to go from ‘five to one’ – from fifth in the medals table at London 2012 to first at Rio 2016 – had hit a major snag.
Lennon, who by now had his cameras rolling, realised quickly something was amiss but even then he was not unduly worried.
Part 1 of his two-hour documentary Broken Rings, will be screened by eir Sport tonight.
In it, Walsh talks about the dramatic break-up with the IABA that had its head honchos called before a Dail Committee and Joe Duffy’s call operators working on overdrive.
Lennon told SunSport: “We started the project just before the Worlds in Doha in 2015, so following the success there we thought they were going to clean up in Rio. I honestly thought this was Ireland’s best sports team.
“We came fourth in the Worlds and Paddy Barnes and Katie Taylor didn’t even take part. So before Rio I thought we would be top three and with results going our way, it could be even better.
“That said, I knew how important Billy Walsh was and this was the major worry. It was beyond crazy that to have such success, the IABA would create a situation where he would quit.
“But my feeling was that the guys were so experienced that they would be OK without Billy for the nine months between Doha and Rio - I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
By the time Walsh had departed, the set-up was already down another experienced coach after Pete Taylor had exited his daughter Katie’s corner.
The absence of Walsh, who had been acting up as HPU Director as well as head coach, was dismissed by some boxers, with Paddy Barnes stating he would win gold in Rio “with Mickey Mouse in the corner”.
The team was ultimately expanded to eight by the time summer came around – Conlan, Barnes, Taylor, Joe Ward, Steven Donnelly, Brendan Irvine, David Oliver Joyce and Michael O’Reilly.
Five of the eight were not only hopeful of getting on the podium, they were almost expected to. Donnelly, Irvine and Joyce were seen as the squad’s dark horses, all well capable of landing medals given a run of form and a decent draw.
Yet the team had barely sampled Copacabana Beach when the waves started crashing in.
Promoted technical chief Zaur Antia, now head coach, was sitting at the draw with assistants John Conlan and Eddie Bolger when word came in that middleweight O’Reilly had failed a doping test.
Lennon was there to capture the shock on their faces when news filtered through, broken on the news pages back home and catching the management team unawares.
Ireland’s bid for medals had already suffered two hammer blows without a punch being thrown. From then on, it was as if they had met a perfect storm.
The nation was central to two major stories world governing body AIBA wanted to play down – doping, with O’Reilly, and also a judging controversy.
Lennon, who accepted he was now making a disaster movie and not a Disney-type affair, recalled: “It was a combination of different things that all added up to failure.
“The major one was Billy leaving. His departure saw a decline in standards that resulted in the overall disastrous results.
“But it wasn’t the only reason. Momentum is really important and the Irish team had none. O’Reilly’s drug test knocked the confidence of the team and the management.
“Turning like this around is really difficult to do. You only have to look at the Ulster Rugby team now and see how hard it is to manage a crisis.
“So a decline in standards, a cloud hanging over the team, saw the results happen in Rio - but the two exceptions were Conlan and Taylor.”
Undoubtedly those two were the stars of the team, as their progression in the pro ranks since the Games has proven.
WBA world champ Taylor is now 8-0 in paid game having turned over in the months after returning from Rio, where she was edged out in her first fight by Finland’s Mira Potkonen.
The Bray fighter’s aura of invincibility had been popped in the run-up to the Games, however. She had suffered two defeats earlier in 2016, the second of which seeing her relinquish the world title that had been hers for a glorious decade.
While many saw the 2012 gold medallists opening-round defeat to Potkonen as controversial – Lennon included – it had nothing on Conlan’s shock loss.
The Belfast ace was drawn against Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin in the quarter-finals. The mood was thick. After all, the previous night, Nikitin’s compatriot Evgeny Tishchenko had sealed heavyweight gold against Kazakhstan’s Vassiliy Levit.
The problem was, Levit, to most neutral observers around the world, was the clear winner. Accusations were made that AIBA referees and judges were favouring Russian boxers and now Conlan had to face one.
Like Levit, the Irishman attacked for three rounds and, like the 91kg decider, fans and media alike felt he was a clear winner. But again, the referee raised the Russian’s hand.
Having also grabbed a fortunate result in the quarter-final against Thailand, after facing Conlan, Nikitin was unable to participate again and he pulled out injured, his bronze secured.
Conlan’s post-fight interview, shown again in Broken Rings, saw him label AIBA “f***ing cheats”. Almost two years on, it still has the ability to give viewers goosebumps.
With Conlan’s dream over, his outburst led to Top Rank Promotions chief Bob Arum offering him a bumper deal to turn pro, and his record is now 6-0. But scars from Rio remain.
In the wake of the scandal, AIBA sent a number of judges home, including the referee of the Conlan fight, while disciplinary action was later taken against several R&Js.
Since the Games, the method of scoring fights has been overhauled while there has also been change at the top, but the world governing body remains on the Olympic community’s naughty step with some doubts over its involvement at Tokyo 2020.
Lennon, whose post-mortem hears from the fighters, coaches, pundits, journalists and boxing officials, added: “Katie’s dad leaving turned her world upside down and she wasn’t the same fighter.
“As you can see in the pros she is a superstar but those last four months of her amateur career were a disaster.
“Conlan’s defeat was clearly corruption - they told us days in advance it would happen and it did.”
The high-profile defeats for Conlan and Taylor, and O’Reilly’s drug story, were not the only low points. In the ring Ireland struggled to find any momentum at all. Ward lost his first fight, as did Barnes.
Irvine did not find his best form while those who did, Donnelly and Joyce, were eliminated before they could secure medals.
To make matters worse, Walsh’s influence led to a mini revival in the USA’s fortunes as the team claimed a male medal which they had not managed in London, improving overall from two medals to three.
Boxing aside, it was one of the more distasteful Olympics in recent memory as Ireland’s Pat Hickey was caught up in a ticketing scandal and the Russians were banned from track and field for their part in a massive doping affair.
For Lennon, the experience soured his love for the sport while his time in Brazil showed him the country’s gross inequality as well.
He added: “I am a big boxing fan and I am a big fan of the management of the team. Zaur was incredibly generous with his time and access. Eddie Bolger and John Conlan as well. The boxers are great too, what they have achieved for the country and boxing is incredible.
“But I didn’t enjoy Rio. It is an amazing city but the Olympics is a grotesque organisation it is completely opposite to what they claim to be doing - it is just a racket.
“To see the IOC members driving around in their luxury cars and five-star hotels beside favelas is – and it’s the only word I can think of - grotesque.
“The Olympics has had terrible decisions over the years, from the Cold War voting to the Seoul Olympics where they robbed Roy Jones Jnr - they are clearly corrupt.”
Both the world governing body and the Irish association have faced problems since Rio.
Taiwanese architect and administrator Dr Ching Kuo Wu, in charge of AIBA since 2006, was forced out last year after members of the organisation called for his impeachment.
The IABA, meanwhile, have emerged from a row in the summer of 2017 where two men claimed to be its rightful chairman. David O’Brien’s bid was defeated, with Joe Christle remaining in situ.
Christle and current CEO Fergal Carruth were the men in charge when Walsh was courted and then landed by the USA, and held the reins during his contract negotiations.
Georgia’s Antia remains as head coach and former world professional boxing champion Bernard Dunne has been appointed as director with the HPU.
Lennon found it surreal to watch both associations up close and feels neither covered themselves in glory in 2016.
He said: “The organisation that runs international boxing is unfit for purpose. The previous president Dr Wu presided over a financial disaster and put the organisation in huge debts.
“The current president has clear ties with organised crime - it is hard to think of a more inappropriate appointment.
“So their position in the next Olympics is unclear but I imagine the Olympics will make some type of compromise because it is all about money for them.
“The IABA have had an appalling time from Billy leaving in November 2015 to Rio in 2016 to the civil war in the summer of 2017.
“It is hard to think of a sporting organisation and hierarchy that have had such a calamitous run.
“Boxing continues to do amazing work in Ireland. The Irish boxing clubs continue to do amazing work for their communities and the coaches do fabulous work for the boys and girls.
“Many are like second fathers to them and my faith in the clubs remains strong. But leaving the Olympics, the overall feeling was sadness.
“I knew how hard the boxers had trained over the years. This team will probably never be matched in quality in my lifetime. It was a unique opportunity for Irish boxing and we failed to take it.”
MOST READ IN SPORT
As Willard said, ‘Part of me was afraid of what I would find and what I would do when I got there. I knew the risks, or imagined I knew’.
Gary Lennon only knew the half of it.
***Broken Rings is an exclusive two-part documentary series that tells the story of the heartbreak of the Irish Boxing Team at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Starts this Monday at 9:30pm on eir Sport 1.