Two leaps of faith leave Jenny Lehane on brink of the Olympics
The At 54kg Final Over Lehane Championships Their Seb Fay Celebrates Finals Boxing 2024 Daly/sportsfile After Niamh Victory Bout Iaba By National Photo Elite Jennifer
We’re in the meat of it now.
Paris and everything that comes with the XXXIII Olympiad still sits nine weeks distant but this is the point in the cycle where so many athletes pour through closing qualifying windows while others find themselves locked on the wrong side as the latch shuts.
Some of Ireland’s top rowers fell either side of that equation in the last week, a dozen or so swimmers are currently in the middle of an Irish Open meet which is doubling up as a potential tickets to the Games, and seven of the nation’s best boxers will soon get one last chance to book tickets at a last-ditch qualifier in Bangkok.
The draw for that last lottery is being made on Thursday morning.
Lives have been tailored specifically for moments like these. The wider gamut of human experiences – relationships, regular careers, social lives – have been thrust on ice or left to wither on a vine in favour of a one-tracked mind and a singular existence. It’s only inevitable that the magnitude of it all can threaten to overwhelm.
“Definitely the demons can come up,” says Jenny Lehane, one of those boxers aiming to return from Thailand as a newly-minted Olympian.
“For me in training coming up to a tournament you are coming out a ring saying ‘am I good enough for this?’ and kinda thoughts like that.”
There are 51 places up for grabs at the Huamark Indoor Stadium, 23 for women and 28 for men. Among the more than 600 hopefuls will be nine Olympic medallists and the strict functionality of the event is such that there will be no finals or medal ceremonies. Each weight class will cease once the quota is filled. Job done.
Lehane, a 5’ 3” southpaw from Ashbourne in Meath, hasn’t just parked the rest of her life to make these Games. She has left behind a highly successful career in the sport of ITF taekwondo but one that offered no route to the greatest show on earth.
The martial arts background stems from her eldest brother and there was a point when all eight siblings were involved in the sport. Jenny was good enough to win two European titles. One sister, Sarah, brought back a gold medal from the World Championships in Finland last year.
Walking away from all that wasn’t easy but boxing leaned on the ropes and drew her in after dabbling in it at St Pat’s DCU while studying to be a primary teacher. That was five years ago and one leap of faith has since been followed by another with the decision to park her career in education and go full-time for Paris.
“It was difficult, yeah, because I had only started out in my career and I love teaching and it will be something that I won’t be dreading to go back to when all is said and done. It was difficult to walk away and into the unknown. ‘Will this work out? And will I ever get anywhere near it? But so far, it has worked out well.”
A two-time national champion, Lehane came close to securing her Olympic place at the first time of asking when winning her first two fights at last summer’s European Games in Poland before losing a 3-2 decision to a French opponent in what was effectively a box-off for the available slot.
If that at least came with the consolation of coming so close then Milan earlier this year was a different story with another French fighter edging Lehane out on the same score in the opening bout.
That the selection committee stuck with her at the third time of asking is no small thing and the vagaries inherent in this whole process can continue in the ring.
That last qualifying event in Italy gave rise to another serious bout of hand-wringing and head-shaking after some highly questionable judging decisions. Lehane was in the crowd for one of them when teammate Grainne Walsh lost out to a Polish opponent that she had dominated.
It’s not something she chooses to afford oxygen or time. What benefit would that be? All she can do is apply herself to the task at hand, as she has done in all the years spent in combat sports, and hope that it will be her arm raised when it comes to decide who gets the golden ticket for the trip to France.
“Sometimes it can be the longest wait ever,” she said of that most pregnant of pauses.
“Most of the time when you know you have done enough you know your hand will be raised. But, yeah, a thousand thoughts can go into your mind within those few seconds. Just hopefully the announcer announces it quickly.”
Daina Moorehouse (50kg); Jennifer Lehane (54kg); Grainne Walsh (66kg); Sean Mari (51kg); Aidan Walsh (71kg); Kelyn Cassidy (80kg); and Martin McDonagh (92+kg).
Michaela Walsh (57kg); Kellie Harrington (60kg); Aoife O’Rourke (75kg); Jude Gallagher (57kg); Dean Clancy (63.5kg); Jack Marley (92kg).