BROKEN DREAMS
The intense pressure of Olympic competition revealed
AT the World championships the year before the Beijing Olympics both Joe Murray and Bradley Saunders had won bronze medals, rare feats for British boxers. They went into the Games with high expectations.
Ahead of the tournament Bradley had beaten the reigning light-welterweight champion Manus Boonjumnong (in an amateur career that also included wins over other Olympic gold medallists Daniyar Yeleussinov and Aleksei Tishchenko as well). But in the two minutes of his first round with Alexis Vastine, everything changed for him. Panic started to set in. “I shouldn’t have been down. I should have been up,” he said. “If I was up that first round then he would have to start chasing me. “I was just playing catch up after that.” Saunders did eventually turn professional. He looked good in his early bouts but ultimately struggled with injury and frustration, retiring with a 13-1 record. “I always wish I had just stopped [as an] amateur. It is a lot different as a professional. You’ve got to train a lot harder, away from your family a lot more, sparring’s a lot longer and it’s a lot lonelier. It’s a lonely sport anyway, obviously you fight by yourself. But as a professional you’re not part of a team as such,” he said.
It’s the Olympic team that he remembers. “We had a scream as kids growing up, travelling the world and getting paid to do so,” he said. “We’ve been everywhere, everywhere round the world, there’s not many countries we haven’t been to as kids growing up, it’s going to be the best memories of my life.” Life as a professional boxer has not been easy for Joe Murray either. Most recently he lost a British title challenge to Lewis Ritson inside a round and is now waiting for another opportunity. Back in 2008 he knew well the value of an Olympic medal. They had all seen Amir Khan become a superstar four years earlier.
Murray though met the host nation’s Gu Yu in his opening contest. “It was a close fight, he got the nod. He showed he was a good fighter,” Joe reflected. “He got the decision, it was a probably a blessing for me in disguise.
“I’d have to come back out and I’d have been straight in a sweatsuit with no food or drink having to make weight again. These were the limits we were pushing ourselves to try and be the best at our sport.”
He had pushed his body to the edge just to get to that bout. “Going into the Olympics I was struggling making weight, I collapsed,” Murray recalled. “I was in the dorm in Chinese Taipei, I was making weight, I got off the bed too fast, I went dead dizzy and I just collapsed. I fell downwards like a building, I fell on top of my legs and ripped all the ligaments in the knee.
But Murray made sure he got there. He went with Tony Jeffries to the spectacular Opening Ceremony. It was a special moment. “I don’t think you could buy anything like that or do anything like that. I think it was one of the highlights of getting to the Olympics,” Murray said.