{"id":247461,"date":"2025-11-06T14:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/247461\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T14:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T14:30:08","slug":"rising-force-patsy-joyce-sets-sights-on-olympics-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/247461\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising force Patsy Joyce sets sights on Olympics \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Patsy Joyce talks about getting on that plane to Los Angeles in 2028<\/a>, he\u2019s not getting ahead of himself. Such has been his whirlwind rise in world boxing he\u2019s already being touted as an Olympic medal contender, and justifiably so.<\/p>\n

Joyce was the youngest member of the 17-strong Irish team at September\u2019s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, coming away with the bantamweight (55kg) bronze medal. At 19, he defied his youth \u2013 and his own expectations \u2013 and took out several boxers with far more weighty reputations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going out hoping to win one fight. I didn\u2019t expect it,\u201d says Joyce. \u201cI was going for experience, for the 2028 Olympics, get as many fights as possible out there and see where it goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was better because there was no pressure on me. I was like, \u2018do my best and win\u2019. Now I know I\u2019m able to compete at that level, up there with them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several members of Joyce\u2019s corner have already been telling him that \u2013 starting with his uncle John Joe Joyce, who competed in the light welterweight at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and first took Joyce under his wing at the Olympic club in Mullingar.<\/p>\n

Irish boxing head coach Zaur Antia also has Olympic ties going back to Beijing, and one of the last people to offer Joyce advice before he entered the ring in Liverpool was two-time Olympic champion Kellie Harrington<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m chatting with Kellie the whole time,\u201d he says. \u201cBefore my fights in Liverpool she came into the dressingroom, and she was saying \u2018just enjoy it, don\u2019t take it serious, just enjoy it\u2019. It calmed me down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AoifeAoife O’Rourke celebrates her win against Turkey’s Busra Isildar at the World Boxing Championships final Liverpool in September. Photograph: Ben Roberts Photo\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

With Aoife O\u2019Rourke securing middleweight gold (75kg) and Gr\u00e1inne Walsh also winning a welterweight (65kg) bronze, Liverpool proved the best World Championships for Irish boxing since 2015, when Michael Conlan became Ireland\u2019s first men\u2019s champion.<\/p>\n

There was another World Championship connection with Joyce in that his cousin, Joe Ward, was the last Irishman to win a world elite medal, coming away with silver in Hamburg in 2017.<\/p>\n

Joyce turned 20 in October and will next compete at the European Under-23 Championships in Budapest at the end of this month, where another medal beckons. He\u2019s already won a European under-22 title from last year.<\/p>\n

There was no easy bout in Liverpool, Joyce taking out South Korea\u2019s Jaeyong Shin, Bulgaria\u2019s Olympian and European medallist Javier Ibanez Diaz and Asian champion Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov of Uzbekistan before narrowly falling to Spain\u2019s Rafael Serrano, a European bronze medallist, in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m only young, you get more mature,\u201d says Joyce. \u201cYou get more man strength as well. You\u2019re 23, 24, that\u2019s when you\u2019re peaking. More tournaments before that [LA 2028]. You get more experience. You get better and better. Every tournament you get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joyce admits he got a wake-up call when beaten in the opening round of the Strandja multi-nations tournament in Bulgaria earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost my first fight, got battered as well. I didn\u2019t perform at all. But it was good, because then you know how good they [other top boxers] are, I needed that. You\u2019re boxing the best of the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joyce took a short break after his Liverpool success but not for long, the prospect of further medal success in Budapest soon pulling him back into the ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of boxers seem to say that to us. You take the time off, and you get restless, and need to get going. You just get bored sitting around. You\u2019re mad to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n

His says his uncle John Joe is still one of his boxing heroes and has helped shine the light towards making Los Angeles, 20 years after John Joe competed in Beijing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes you think you can do it. \u2018My uncle did it, so why can\u2019t I do it?\u2019. You don\u2019t have to be special to do it. It\u2019s just a normal thing. You can get there, if you train hard and listen to your coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Patsy Joyce talks about getting on that plane to Los Angeles in 2028, he\u2019s not getting ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,39116,85474,10258,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-247461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-kellie-harrington","10":"tag-los-angeles-2028","11":"tag-olympic-games","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}