Kenny Egan, silver medallist, coulda been a contender. But he gave up the hollow glory of golden gloves for the infinite riches of contentment.

One Wednesday in the autumn of 2008, two kids squared up against each other on a patch of grass in Condalkin, fists raised in a pugilistic pose. The day before, a neighbourhood hero had returned from Beijing wearing a silver medal, and so they had forsaken soccer for the newest old game in town. As Kenny Egan drove past, he looked out the car window with a sense of pride.

“I came back on the Tuesday,” said Egan, “and the next day there were two kids sparring on the green with a pair of gloves on them. That’s the first time I’d ever seen that in my housing estate,  so I think the Olympics did great for boxing in this country”. Boxing clubs are full to the point of turning people away. Egan’s own club, Neilstown, has finally received a grant that will allow it move out of a school hall and into the ranks of proper boxing clubs, and boxing can look to a securely funded future, behind its figurehead, that other sports can only dream of.

Ireland universally welcomed Kenny Egan home with open arms and open doors. He practically has a car parking space of his own in RTE. He is ubiquitous in the Irish media, gracing the front of the papers as often as the back, and spent months being courted by the international big time. Vegas was calling Kenny Egan to come bask in its neon glow. He would have begun fighting in the same weight class as his hero, Joe Calzaghe, a man with 46 professional fights fought and zero lost, with 32 knockouts to boot. During our interview in the high performance gym of the National Stadium, Egan is cooling down from a workout on an exercise bike. He is wearing a Calzaghe v Roy Jones Jr t-shirt, picked up when he went to New York to watch Calzaghe fight Jones, win, and walk away with $10million for one night’s work. It must have been very tempting indeed. read more »