Brutal honesty and gold medal standards: Billy Walsh on coaching, culture and courage

Brutal honesty and gold medal standards: Billy Walsh on coaching, culture and courage

Brutal honesty and gold medal standards: Billy Walsh on coaching, culture and courage


Billy Walsh likes to tell a story.  It is a story about espionage and Russia, but it is also a story that informs how the world-renowned boxing coach thinks about and approaches the world. Back when he was the head coach of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association (IABA) High-Performance Unit, Walsh took a group of boxers to Russia for a training camp with his colleague, Gary Keegan. The Irish team was fitted with heart rate monitors to track their activity at training, a relatively new concept at the time. Intrigued, the Russians asked if they could borrow the equipment for…