Molloy sees positives as Tokyo quest is delayed
OUGHTERARD boxer Kieran Molloy may only be 21 years of age but the welterweight would’ve been seen as a fighter who could not only qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games but make a big impression in Tokyo.
The qualification process in boxing for the Olympic Games is an arduous road but it was hoped Molloy, who was named the IABA’s best male elite boxer in Ireland in 2019, would secure his flight to Tokyo in one of the qualifiers in the coming months.
“I wasn’t actually at the first qualifier this year – there was another fighter (Aidan Walsh) sent instead – but I was hoping that I would be sent to the second qualifier in Paris in May and I was getting ready for that,” he begins.
Whatever Irish Boxing’s strategy, there was little doubt Molloy would have got his shot. In February of last year, he became the only Galway boxer to win a second Irish elite title while, in October, he defeated the champions of England, Germany and Thailand to claim the prestigious Eindhoven Cup in Holland.
Noting that the organisers made the right decision in the interest of both the athletes and public’s health by cancelling the Olympic Games and their qualifiers due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he says that after being fully immersed in training for the Olympics for the last three years, the lack of activity now is difficult to come to terms with.
“For the last three years, I have been training full-time in Dublin, twice a day. It was a full-time job in itself. So, it is funny enough to get a break from it now, given we (Irish boxers) are not up with the High Performance Unit and that we are all doing our training from home.”
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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