THE LONG ROAD TO PARIS
Dean Clancy’s journey to the 2024 Olympics had some heartbreak along the way – but he refused to be denied
AFEW days before Christmas, Dean Clancy went back to his old primary school. He stood in the hall of St Edward’s NS in Sligo, taking questions from excited youngsters and telling the story of his Olympic qualification. It has been quite the journey. ‘It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster,’ his father Jason says of the twists and turns that led his 22-year-old son to Paris next summer.
On the June morning that Clancy faced his date with destiny at the European Games in Poland, his grandfather was being buried in Sligo. Tony White’s funeral took place in Sligo’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at the same time as he was in the ring, facing Italy’s Gianluigi Malanga in the lightweight quarter-final. Family members had the bout on the phone during the Mass.
Clancy had gone to see his grandfather before leaving for the European Games and had promised him that he would qualify for Paris. Jason had flown out to Krakow a couple of days earlier, knowing that things weren’t looking good. By the time, he touched down, his father-in-law had passed away. He decided against telling his son immediately, letting him focus on the opening two bouts of the tournament.
‘The first couple of fights in any tournament are always the hardest, because you are getting rid of the rust and getting into your rhythm. It hadn’t been a shock, he hadn’t been well and in and out of hospital. So, I had to get Dean over his first couple of bouts but I had to tell him before the quarterfinal. It was the moment that we had been working towards for years. Everything he had worked for since he was nine or 10 years of age came down to this one fight. Three rounds, nine minutes that could change his life. And I had never seen him so determined or focused in my life. He boxed out of his skin that day and didn’t speak about his grandfather until after the fight, but then he spoke about him, alright,’ Clancy senior remembers.
It was an incredibly difficult day for the young boxer, but he was driven on by how much his grandfather wanted him to become an Olympian. ‘Emotionally, it was very tough. But I knew that he wanted me to qualify, and that was a bit of solace and helped drive me on. There was a complete calmness over me for that fight. I was completely in the zone. Nothing was going to stop me.’
The first thing he did when arriving home with his bronze medal — he had lost the semi-final to French world champion and Tokyo silver medallist Sofiane Oumiha — was visit his grandfather’s grave. ‘He was always in my corner and will forever be in my corner. I know he is watching down on me and is proud of what I have achieved.’
Clancy is one of five Irish boxers who have already booked their place at next summer’s Olympics, and along with Jack Marley is part of a new generation of talented fighters who had their dreams and ambitions nurtured by what happened at London 2012. Clancy remembers being a 10-year-old jumping around his sitting-room in Sligo as Katie Taylor celebrated with the Tricolour on the television.
‘That is where this journey started, that is when I first had the dream,’ he says now. Clancy had been boxing a couple of years at that stage. He had initially followed his older brother down to the local kick-boxing club, although that didn’t quite work out.
‘ I wasn’t kicking enough and was hitting too hard with my hands, so I was getting disqualified a lot. I didn’t last too long in kick-boxing,’ the boxer recalls with a laugh. His father had been a boxer in his youth, so the brothers joined the Ballinacarrow boxing club in Sligo, where Dean’s talent quickly became apparent.
His first fight was at a show in Foxford. ‘It was only an exhibition bout, because they were only nine, but he stopped the other guy in the second round,’ his father remembers. His career progressed step by step. He won his first Sligo-Leitrim title at under-12, his first Connacht title the following year and became an All-Ireland Schoolboys champion for the first time at 13.
By that stage, he was being coached by his father. Jason’s a crane operator and when the construction industry crashed, work became scarce. ‘I like to keep myself busy, so I just started coaching Dean,’ Jason says. They also moved to the Sean McDermott club in Jason’s native Manorhamilton in North Leitrim, around 15 miles from Sligo. ‘We had keys to the club, could come and go as we pleased. And his granny was five minutes from the club, so we could go up there for dinner after a session.’
Clancy’s work ethic impressed his father from an early stage. ‘I used to park my machine a little bit down from the house and I remember some nights, would be walking up to the house, and I’d hear Dean out, pounding the bag, in the rain and pitch-dark. There aren’t many 11 or 12-year-olds who would do that when they weren’t told to. He had that drive from an early age.’
Boxing, and the Olympic dream, consumed Clancy’s life. He was up at six every morning for a couple of hours training before heading to school at the Ballinode Community College. His mother made him promise that he would do his Leaving Cert, which he did, but it was the thought of emulating Taylor which was driving him.
He represented Ireland at flyweight in the 2017 European Junior Championships, taking home a silver medal after losing to his Rus
sian opponent by split decision in the final. Just like when he lost his Connacht final and came back the following year to win, he set his mind on claiming European gold.
The following year, he wore the Irish vest at the European Youth Championships while also getting his first taste of a huge sporting event with the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. England’s Hopey Price beat him in the European final and also in the Olympic semi-final.
‘The Youth Olympics were my first multi-sport event, staying in a village with athletes from different sport. It gave me a taste for it and I wanted more,’ Clancy observes. In 2019, he was entered in the elite championships for the first time, but a stroke of fortune allowed him to box.
A fighter must be 18 to box without a head-guard in Ireland. When the 2019 elites kicked off, Clancy was still 17. However, a bye in the first round meant he could compete as his birthday was two days later. Within a few weeks, he was the elite featherweight champion.
‘After winning my first elite title, I started to think about qualifying for Tokyo. Now, I realise that probably wasn’t realistic, I had just turned 18 and still had a lot to learn, no international experience at the highest level.’
However, the impressive manner in which he won the title put him firmly on the radar of the High Performance Unit. Within a few months of claiming his first elite title though, the world had halted because of Covid-19.
‘Covid happened just after I won my first elite title, but it was probably a blessing in disguise. I felt like I grew up and matured a lot at that time, so when the sport started again, I felt I had become a better fighter, or more mature, over those 18 months.’
Boxing suffered more than most sports during the pandemic. Clancy’s father built a makeshift gym at the side of their house and he spent most of lockdown, lifting weights. He put on more than 10 kilos of muscle and moved up a couple of weights to lightweight.
As the world started to open up once more, he was called up to represent Ireland at the European under-22 championships in Italy. He won four fights in six days to qualify for his third successive Euro final. And this one was a charm as he claimed his coveted gold, even if it was in rather bizarre circumstances as his Israeli opponent failed to turn up for the decider, meaning Clancy got a walkover. Even if it came in an odd way though, he could finally call himself a European champion.
Both himself and Marley won gold medal at those championships and made Paris 2024 a goal — the Tokyo Olympics were on at the time. The pair are now a key part of the High Performance squad, whom recently had a training camp in Tenerife. It means that Clancy is up in Abbotstown from Tuesday to Friday every week, which will become five days a week in the New Year.
It’s a small sacrifice to make as he follows his dream. When he came back to Manorhamilton in June with the European Games bronze, the local community came out in their droves to support him. The attention will just grow between now and the summer.
‘It’s great to be able to put Manor and the club on the map, they have been very supportive of me. I love representing Manor, you can see the boxing club from my granny’s house, it is only a couple of minutes down the road, so it is great to be able to make them so proud.’
But as he discovered just before Christmas, Clancy’s hometown of Sligo is just as proud of him.
Standing in St Edward’s National School, he advised the kids to keep showing up to training, even when they don’t want to or are having a bad day. It is that dedication and diligence that has led Dean Clancy to Paris next summer, but that’s not the endpoint of his journey.
It may only be the start.