Ten years and one month ago today, Irish boxing suffered one of its more painful self-inflicted disasters.
Fresh from leading the country to three medals at the men's World Championships - including a first gold at that level, for Michael Conlan – Billy Walsh resigned as head coach of the Irish Athletic Boxing Association’s high-performance unit and senior team.
The hugely esteemed Wexford man blamed the failure of Irish amateur boxing’s governing body to sign off on a new contract previously agreed with the Irish Sports Council (now Sport Ireland) and left to take over Team USA, less than a year before the 2016 Olympic Games.
At the time, Walsh said that "Zaur Antia, Jim Moore, Eddie Bolger, Pete Taylor, John Conlan, Billy McClean and Dmytri [Dmitruk] are well positioned to take my work and the work of the high-performance programme forward and lead this senior team into Rio to compete for medals."
Then-reigning women’s lightweight gold medallist Katie Taylor was among the many to express shock at the development, calling it a sad day for Irish boxing.
And that appeared to be borne out ten months later, when Walsh led the US to three medals – and the Coach of the Year award - as the highly fancied eight-strong Irish contingent came home without one between them, albeit Conlan suffering a decision so obviously unjust that it helped spark an investigation into bout fixing at the Games.
Another questionable quarter-final defeat was that of Taylor’s surprise loss to Finland’s Mira Potkonen. Antia, now head coach, memorably expressed his outrage and insisted she had won: "Boxing is hit and don’t get hit," he told RTE Sport. "Katie hit more - two times more than she got back. What else can she do?"
It is a sign how well Irish boxing subsequently recovered under the Georgian that his retirement, which was confirmed yesterday, is now being spoken about as a blow to rival that of Walsh’s departure.
Speaking in 2020, Walsh said: "I learned a hell of a lot, technically, from Zaur. We set up a system in Ireland which became one of the best in the world, which everyone had a part to play in, but a key piece to it, a lot of it, was the technical part of it."
He later added: "We were very lucky that we found this guy, because it can go wrong - it had gone wrong. He has been the biggest success story in Irish sport, probably ever."
Antia, who turned 63 in September, won six national titles and a Soviet Union bronze medal as a competitor before moving into coaching.
He was the successful head of the Georgian underage setup when his coaching style caught the eye of Corkman Dan O’Connell, a renowned former boxing official and referee, in Antia's home town of Poti.
Antia travelled to interview with Gary Keegan, director of the nascent high-performance programme, for the job of Irish head coach in 2003.
That went to Walsh, who also had the advantage of being able to speak the local lingo, but Antia had memorised one prophetic phrase - "Where I am, there is victory" - and gave an impressive coaching demonstration.
"He just blew us away," recalled Keegan, who persuaded Sport Ireland to fund Antia's appointment as a technical coach.
"We didn't think we'd keep him for that long. We thought maybe we'd have him for two years and he'd make a difference in that time but, the nature of the man, we end up keeping him for 22, 23 years."
As future Olympian Darren O'Neill observed: "Zaur couldn't speak English, but he could speak boxing. Every one of us could understand him."
Two years later, he was asked to stay longer-term. Antia’s family joined him in Bray, where they were welcomed by Taylor and hers, a year out from the first of the Irishwoman’s five successive world titles.
In 2008, Antia and Walsh led Ireland to their first Olympic boxing medals since Michael Carruth and Wayne McCullough 26 years previous. Kenny Egan claimed silver while Paddy Barnes and the late Darren Sutherland took home bronze in Irish boxing’s most successful Games to date.
While they were in Beijing, war broke out between Russia and Georgia, when Antia’s wife and children were home visiting relatives. Invading troops briefly occupied Poti and, at first unknown to his colleagues, he stayed up for three nights calling home before he was able to confirm they were safe.
That tally was exceeded in London four years later. Bronze again for Barnes, and his friend from Belfast Conlan, and silver for Mullingar’s John Joe Nevin, who had claimed a rare world medal (bronze) in Milan in 2009. But the undoubted star of London 2012 was Taylor, who took home glorious gold in the first year women’s boxing was allowed at the Games.
The world medals continued to flow in the slow build-up to Rio. Jason Quigley (silver) and Joe Ward (bronze) in Kazakhstan in 2013, Taylor making it five in a row in South Korea in 2014, and Conlan's first gold for an Irish male in Qatar, where Ward upgraded to silver, and Michael O’Reilly took bronze.
Then Walsh left and Antia endured that painful Brazil experience, which started with O’Reilly being removed from the Olympic village after failing a drugs test – he was subsequently banned for four years – and Ireland heading home empty-handed after daylight robberies and shock defeats.
But that motivated the man who was highly sought after to stay and lead the Irish team back to winning ways. He signed a five-year contract to remain head coach until 2021.
"This is a great team and they deserve respect," Antia said at the downbeat return to Dublin Airport. "We did not win medals, but every boxer performed well and everybody who was there said how close the fights were. I can’t go without winning. In my heart, I want to see my team strong again."
Ward won his second world silver the following year, and Ireland soon had another world champion. Kellie Harrington had won world silver at a non-Olympic weight - when Taylor had had to settle for bronze - before the Games in 2016, and, after the latter turned professional, she resumed the Irish monopoly on the 60kg world crown in India in 2018.
"Zaur Anita is one of the best coaches in the world and to have him training us out in Abbottstown in an honour," she said after becoming Ireland's first two-weight world medallist.
Covid ensured Harrington and Co had to wait an extra year for Tokyo but she stormed to the gold in 2021, only needing one split-decision in four bouts. Antia revealed after the final that they had planned a switch of stance that bamboozled opponent Beatriz Ferreira.
Recently retired Aidan Walsh also picked up bronze, missing his semi-final bout due to an ankle injury sustained while celebrating.
Coach Zaur Antia and director of Irish high performance boxing unit Bernard Dunne react to @kelly64kg's win#olympics #tokyo2020 #RTESport #boxing
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 8, 2021
📺 Watch live - https://t.co/yeoFtHU1S3
📱 Updates – https://t.co/0gOUdPX1p1 pic.twitter.com/59EoSlSWMQ
Antia mentored two more world champions in 2022, Amy Broadhurst and Lisa O’Rourke.
And though Harrington was the only medallist of the ten boxers sent to in Paris, it was what he called "The greatest sporting moment of my life in Ireland", and he danced for joy with the Dubliner in the ring after she had become the first Irish boxer to retain an Olympic title.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio 1's Inside Sport, Harrington, who recently reversed her decision to retire, said: "Zaur had a colossal impact on my career. If you're willing to put in the work and be a high-performance athlete and give it your all then Zaur is absolutely willing to give his all.
"I'm actually devastated that he's leaving. They say you don't realise what you had till it's gone and that's what's going to happen.
"He eats, sleeps and breathes boxing. If he's at family occasions, or any gatherings, he's looking at videos of boxing and he's coming up with strategies in his head of 'If you meet this person, this is how you're going to beat them and stuff'.
"He's a really, really good person but boxing is his life. It's what has consumed so many of his years and I'm really, really sad to see him go."
The world medals, particularly from the female members of the high-performance unit, have continued to arrive since Paris.
O’Rourke and her sister Aoife both won silver at Ireland’s last biennial IBA event in March this year, before Aoife, the elder of the Roscommon pair, claimed gold at the inaugural World Boxing Championships in September, where bronze medallists Gráinne Walsh and Patsy Joyce were also among Antia's 17-strong team.
Former professional world champion Bernard Dunne, who bridged a nine-year gap from Keegan as the IABA's high-performance director from 2017-22, warned his former employers that they needed to have a succession plan in place, even as all the noises were that he would stay for a final hurrah in Los Angeles in 2028.
"One huge thing we do need to see is other coaches getting exposure to Zaur Antia and actually downloading his brain," said Dunne, after Harrington retained gold last year.
"He should be a coach of coaches, and make the future for Ireland bright. He’s somebody that we can’t lose and countries will try poach him. We need to make sure he stays. He’s fundamental to everything in the future."
Keegan told RTÉ Sport that he believes Antia is: "The best technical coach in the world. He's a phenomenal tactical strategist and his relationship with the boxers is always deep.
"He makes the athletes that he works with believe in themselves and believe in their ability, and he's so unique that he's almost irreplaceable.
"He'll leave a legacy of belief that Irish boxers coming through the club system can go on and stand on Olympic podiums, World podiums and European podiums."
"When truth happens, it's easy to achieve" - Zaur Antia
The man himself also expounded on his coaching philosophy to RTÉ on Wednesday: "You have to be like the father within your team. You have to do everything that is the best for the boxers.
"A coach's number one thing is to look after a boxer, help them, think about their health, help them realise their potential.
"If there are good people [coaches] around, working correctly, then comes truth. And when truth happens, it's easy to achieve."
"Hard work and good people around you, that's how success comes."
Boxing has contributed almost half (19/42) of Ireland’s 42 Olympic medals, and Antia has been involved with 10 of those, as well as 10 world titles.
Let’s hope the IABA can find someone even half as impressive to succeed him.
