After switching from Ireland to Team GB ‘it was a really horrible atmosphere ... it was very difficult’
Boxer Amy Broadhurst is expecting a baby in May but hopes to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Photograph: Bryan O’Brienremembers the puzzled expression. Eventually, the veteran assessor checking her hand wraps looked up and ventured, “Ireland?” She shook her head. Not today. GB Boxing was printed on her singlet. He was trying to make sense of it all. He wasn’t the only one.
After winning the IBA world title in 2022, Broadhurst was invited back to her old primary school. They had a surprise – a letter she had written when just 11 years of age. They read the piece back to her, the story of a girl imagining she had won gold in the Olympics and on arriving back to Dundalk the entire town turned out to welcome their champion home.Ever since she was a youngster training at Dealgan Boxing Club, that had been her dream.And there was no time to waste.
However, in June she lost on a split decision to Rossie Eccles in the European Games in Poland – a qualifier for the Olympics. During that competition, she also made public her relationship with Eoin Pluck, one of the coaches in the Irish Athletic Boxing Association’s High Performance Unit.Broadhurst spent the winter rehabbing a shoulder injury she had picked up during the Europeans while Pluck eventually returned to coaching.
During that period Ireland has boasted two of the best fighters on the planet in that division – Katie Taylor and Kellie Harrington. “When I was told that I wasn’t picked for the qualifier, I was absolutely devastated. God forgive me but the first thing that came to my head was, ‘I want to kill myself.’
Back in Ireland, there was collateral damage. Harrington said she would not be working with Pluck for the Olympics, believing it was akin to having a “spy in the camp”.Meanwhile, the high performance director of Irish Boxing, Tricia Heberle, defended the selection process.But news of Broadhurst’s efforts to switch allegiance became public knowledge before the move was approved.
“The Amy that got in the ring that day, that’s not me. I knew from the very first fight that mentally I couldn’t switch on. I tried so hard to block out everything, but I just couldn’t.”It was, she acknowledges, a difficult situation for many others too and she will forever appreciate the members of the Irish team who did offer her some quiet support at the time.And she always felt Team GB coaches such as Gary Hale, Rob McCracken and Phil Sellers also had her back.
“I was sad after losing that fight but more than anything I was just numb. For a while afterwards, I did think, ‘maybe I’m not good enough, maybe in 2022 I just got lucky.’”Algerian Imane Khelif beat China’s Yang Liu in the Olympic welterweight final. Broadhurst had beaten Khelif in the final of the Worlds in 2022 while she had overcome the Chinese fighter in the semi-final of the Strandja tournament in 2023.Amid the squall, boxing had almost destroyed her. But after the storm came the calm.
Anglo-Irish history is a topic she’s always felt was best stored away on a very high shelf. It doesn’t interest her, doesn’t stir her“He will hopefully be going to school in five or six years and I don’t want him to be listening to, ‘oh, your mum is a turncoat’ or any of that kind of stuff.” Her relationship with Heberle, who has since stepped down from the IABA, however, is unlikely to ever be reconciled. The fallout there was too great. Too brutal. There were no goodbyes.
With Harrington not fighting, Ireland travelled with no entry at 60kg. After all the logjams, there is now an opening in that category.
Kellie-Harrington Paris-2024 Olympic-Games
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