Watching Westmeath's Olympic hero was a real privilege

An Olympic silver medal is one of the greatest prizes in sport, but also one of the cruellest. That much was clear at the ExCel Arena last Saturday night, where one of the outstanding boxers of the London games, John Joe Nevin, narrowly missed out on the dream ending to his Olympic journey. The look of utter dejection that shrouded the Mullingar man during the medal presentation ceremony spoke volumes of his ambition. Years of tough and unglamorous training - of bruises, setbacks and disappointments - had borne fruit, but his competitive spirit still yearned for that top step on the medal podium. Hopefully when the dust settles after a whirlwind couple of weeks, the 23-year-old from Patrick Street will reflect with massive pride on his achievement. Personally, I consider it a great privilege to have been in the arena when a Westmeath man had an Olympic medal placed around his neck for the first time in history. There was an element of good fortune to my attendance last weekend. A good friend from Athlone who lives in London, Shane McLoughlin, last year secured a pair of tickets for the first of the two men's boxing finals sessions. When these tickets were purchased we couldn't have known if any Irish fighter would be competing on the night in question - much less one from Westmeath. On Friday I had watched John Joe's semi-final bout at Dublin airport, less than an hour before the departure for London. The gutsy Paddy Barnes lost on a countback in the preceding bout, and the crowd that huddled around the terminal's TV screen feared a second Irish defeat in quick succession. We needn't have worried. John Joe was as sharp as barbed wire against Cuba's Lazaro Alvarez Estrada. He delivered a masterclass in the art of hitting and not getting hit, making his opponent (the reigning world bantamweight champion) look ordinary. I boarded the flight with a spring in my step. In the lead-up to the Olympics, some news stories suggested that London hadn't done its homework in preparation for the games. Such reports were clearly wide of the mark. My weekend's itinerary included visits to a couple of the main venues, where the public transport, crowd management and security checks were always swift and hassle-free. There was a palpable sense of good cheer in the air, with strangers routinely swapping their Olympic stories and checking results with one another as trains ferried them to and from the arenas. The boxing took place in a section of the astonishingly big ExCeL complex. It wasn't the only Olympic event happening there, as we learned when an affable security man asked one punter if he was looking forward to "a spot of Taekwondo?" As we took our seats ahead of the night's first bout, it was immediately apparent that John Joe's supporters would be heavily outnumbered - and outshouted - by British fans supporting his opponent, Luke Campbell from Hull. Tickets to see Katie Taylor and some of the Irish men's bouts earlier in the games had been on sale until relatively recently but the men's finals were an instant sell-out last year, and that limited the number of Irish in attendance. Thankfully there was no need for any segregation of the British and Irish fans, whose banter on the night was untainted by nastiness or hostility. There were four other finals on the bill, but Nevin-Campbell was the one everyone was really anticipating. Amir Khan and Barry McGuigan were interviewed on the arena's big screen beforehand. When asked for predictions, the Briton suggested Campbell would win while the Irishman felt John Joe had the edge. "There will be a hair's breadth between them," McGuigan accurately forecast. When the two protagonists made their way to the ring, everyone in the arena rose to their feet and their roars of encouragement merged into a deafening cacophony. John Joe appeared to enjoy the moment and a hint of a smile crossed his lips, while his opponent looked more solemn. The three rounds that followed were packed with intensity and tension. Highlighting the often decisive importance of the first round has become something of a cliche in amateur boxing, but it is no less true as a result. Unfortunately, the assuredness which John Joe had displayed in his earlier bouts was less evident on Saturday and Campell managed to penetrate his guard with a number of straight punches which were cheered with gusto by the home fans. The Westmeath man responded with some fierce blows of his own but the scoreboard at the end of the round showed he would have to play catch up, as Campbell led by 5 points to 3. John Joe dug deep for a much better second round, which he took by a 5-4 margin, leaving him trailing by a single point going into the third. Both gave it everything in the last round but hopes of a second gold for Ireland were dashed when Campbell caught John Joe off balance and knocked him to the canvas. While this punch only scored one point for the home boxer, it gave him a huge psychological boost at a crucial stage in the contest. The biggest fight of John Joe Nevin and Luke Campbell's lives flashed by in nine frantic minutes and, despite his valiant effort, the sense that our man had just fallen short of a gold was proven when the referee raised Campbell's hand. Exactly a fortnight after John Joe's first Olympic bout, his magnificent journey had ended. Boxers as gifted as the Mullingar man don't come around very often and, whether his future lies in the professional or amateur game, one senses that he will go on to achieve further success at the highest level. The disappointment of Saturday's defeat will soon fade, but John Joe's achievements at these Olympics are now permanently engraved in Irish sporting history.