Jimmy Halpin - Always Working the Pads

“Jimmy is a great coach, loved him when he travelled to international training camps with Ireland, great pad man.” When you’re getting praise like this from the notoriously hard-to-please Paddy Barnes, then you must be doing something right. And today’s guest Jimmy Halpin has been doing something right for 40 years now. Before that, the young Dubliner had talent as a boxer but didn’t quite manage to match that with a bulging collection of medals, with his last fight coming in 1981 when, three years out of the ring by then, he ‘got a hiding’ when he returned for one night only on a benefit for the Stardust victims. However the lessons he learned still stand to him to this day. Jimmy is loved by his boxers and adored by other coaches, but he takes no bull either and his forthright honesty (or constructive criticism) sometimes leads to disagreements along the way. He trained Ireland’s first female fighter (and first female world champion) Deirdre Gogarty when she first walked through the doors at St Saviours in Dublin, and taught double Olympic champion Kellie Harrington many of the moves that led to her topping podiums in Tokyo and Paris. Jimmy worked his magic with Cathal O’Grady, Darren Sutherland and Emmet Brennan - Olympians all - at club level and worked alongside Billy Walsh with the Irish high performance team for over a decade. Now, at 72, he’s still giving back as a volunteer, touring clubs all over Dublin, mainly, and giving pointers to coaches and boxers alike. As he says, his mission was to create universal boxers before there was even a term for it. His passion for boxing is infectious and as Jimmy says, once you’re in the club - whether you’re a novice or a potential world champion - you’re deserving of his time, and he’ll strive to help you improve. As for the best fighter he worked with during his time in Ireland? I’ll give you a clue - it’s someone who’s got the full set of medals, anyway. 

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