Wouldn’t Miss It For Quids

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.

But we won’t be talking about that, the potential for glory and gold, the front rows lined with celebs and their concubines, all wearing chinchilla-fur coats. A month after the Calzaghe/Jones fight, Egan said a polite ‘no’ to the professional game, and now spends the lion’s share of his time in a long shed on the South Circular Road – the complete but spare high performance gym of Dublin’s National Boxing Stadium. Four years down the road is the London Games. Gold there would be nice, but surely a vault full of the stuff would be nice, too, no?

“I was thinking ‘Will I go pro, now? I have my medal. I may as well strike while the iron is hot.’,” he admits.

“I had big offers coming in from America and that. I was very close to signing on the dotted line but I followed my gut and my heart and said ‘No, I’m gonna hang around for four more years here now, and hopefully lead the Irish team over to London in 2012′.”

Heading to the States would have meant money, sure, but would have meant saying farewell to the sport and the people within it, people that minded him and nurtured him for the last 18 years. Besides, there was plenty of attention to be sought back home. Egan did the media rounds in Ireland, and his affable, unassuming ways meant that return invites were de rigeur.

“I thought it would have died down a bit since then, after a couple of weeks, but it keeps coming. It’s been good and bad. There were times I was in the back of the papers which was good for sport, but then in the front of it was who I was dating, supposedly, Bianca Gascoigne and Chantal and all from Big Brother.

“I’m just at gigs with them, getting photos with them, but they’re saying I’m with them. I had a joke about it. To me, it’s water off a duck’s back, but it’s not nice when the papers are coming to my door and my mother’s reading them. I still live at home, y’know.”

The goal for now, however, is to keep that media machine cranked to the max. Not for any self-serving reasons of ego or chest-puffing, but for the sake of the sport that he has helped boost to the top of Ireland’s agenda, and for the same reason he spurned the Vegas advances.  Egan wants the grassroots of Irish boxing to use his experience as a leg-up.

“I noticed myself when we got back from the Games every club in Ireland is after filling up.  I’ve been boxing the last eighteen years and only now I’m being recognised. I’ve eight senior titles under my belt. I’m going for my ninth now next week, but people don’t know that. People just know Kenny Egan, Olympic silver medal.”

And as sure as eggs are eggs, they’ll know Kenny Egan, gold medal hope in London 2012, but between now and then there is plenty to do, starting with the national boxing championships.

“I want to get that stadium full,” says Egan. “There’s no point getting the senior final in there and having it half full. We want it full as an egg, great atmosphere, that’s what we want to get back into Irish boxing.”

And of course, he’ll be fighting, too. Eight contenders, Egan included, are pencilled down to weigh in as light heavyweights. Some of them have been mouthing off, claiming they have the measure of the returned hero. Egan, as you might expect, is confident. Having watched him pummel the padded hands of his Georgian coach in Dolphin’s Barn,  he has every right to be. His hands are fast, his feet nimble, and he hides explosive power with modest claims.

“I’m not going to tell you a lot of lies, I’m not a power puncher or a knockout merchant. I can give a bit of a dig, as hard as the next man, but I’m no Joe Frasier or George Foreman.  But I’m the champion. I’m not a cocky person, or anything, they’re all more than welcome to weigh in. Those lads have to come and take the title off me. I’ll be 100% fit getting into that ring in a week’s time.”

Kenny Egan Interview  – Sunday Business Post