September 14 - Ireland's John Joe Nevin (pictured) has promised not to turn professional before the London 2012 Olympics after becoming the youngest ever Irish boxer to win a medal at the World Amateur Championships.


The 20-year-old bantamweight from Cavan narrowly missed making the final in Milan when he lost 5-4 to Russian Eduard Abzalimov in the semi-final.

But the bronze medal still represented a significant step forward for the Irish youngster and has already attracted interest from professional promoters.

But Nevin has insisted that he is focused only on London and the Olympics.

He said: “I'm taking a few weeks off now and then I'll be back in full training for the National Senior Championships and then the European Championships.
 
“All I am interested in is the Olympics - the professional game isn't even in my head right now.
 
“I missed out on a medal in Beijing last year - I only lost out to the eventual gold medallist, Enkhbat Badar-Uugan from Mongolia, in the second series - but, please God, I'm getting better by the year and by the time London comes around I'll be ready for anybody in the world.
 
“It's been a fantastic 12 months or so, getting to the Olympic Games and only going out there to the eventual gold medallist and then winning a bronze medal at my first World Championships.
 
“The hardest fight was probably the quarter-final against the Chinese guy, Yu Gu.

"It was certainly the most frustrating, because it was so, so tactical.

"The semi-final against Abzalimov was also a hard fight because it it a physically and mentally a tough one, but it was still tough to lose it by just a single point.
 
“It could have gone either way.

"I can't say I got a particularly bad decision, but if I had got it by a point, well, I don't think he could have said he was robbed either.
 
“I'm now in the top four in the world and I'm really looking forward to the future.

"I was one punch away from making the final.

"I'm in the top four in the world and maybe even the top two.
 
“Next time I want to make history and become the first Irishman to make a final.
 
“I owe a special thanks to my coach at the Cavan Boxing Club, Brian McKeown.

"The entire [Irish] High Performance Programme - and especially the head coach, Billy Walsh - have helped me tremendously, but Brian has to get a lot of credit too because he was the one who took me under his wing from when I was 13 or 14 years of age.
 
“When I went to Brian in the beginning, I was that bad that I didn't know my left hand from my right one.

"He brought me on a hell of a lot.”


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