IT WAS A DIFFERENT sort of atmosphere in the basement of Dunfril House, just off Chestnut Road in Ballybofey, this Monday night.
For the previous few weeks, months even, the coaches and boxers of the Twin Towns Boxing Club had been readying their star turn, light-flyweight Donna Barr (pictured above), for the National Elite Senior Championships.
The Strabane woman could hardly have prepared better, winning gold at the Celtic Cup in September and scooping the Ulster senior title, albeit via a walkover at 48kgs.
Sometime around ten minutes to eight last Friday night, the walls came tumbling in around her.
The general consensus around The National Stadium, the grey old mecca of Irish boxing, was that Barr had won the final, against the reigning champion, Lauren Hogan from Edenderry.
Barr stood on the canvas, her left arm in the clutch of referee Jim Sweeney, who had a grip of Hogan’s right arm.
Barr was ready for that leap of unbridled joy.
Slowly and surely the twine unravelled as the words of announcer Al Morris hauntingly told the story.
The narrowing of Barr’s eyes as the words ‘the winner by a split decision’ ring out outlined the feelings of a boxer who was sure she’d won convincingly.
https://wwwyoutube.com/watch?v=KHgyqJOM3eg
‘In the red corner’ felt like a dagger to the chest.
“I was just gobsmacked,” Barr says now. “Just completely devastated. I was never so sure that I’d won a fight. I’d always be the first to admit that I was beaten. I’d be sore on myself like that.
“When I heard ‘split decision’ I took a double take. How was it even that close?
“I felt more and more comfortable as the fight went on. I was in control. I didn’t land too much in the first round. Getting my distance right was the hard part.
“I knew – or thought – I had it in the fourth round. The boys in the corner were just saying: ‘The fight is yours. Just don’t get knocked out!’
“Her corner was shouting at her to go forward. Her coaches were just rocking back and forth. They were anxious.”
Barr became the latest victim of amateur boxing’s scoring system.
Three of the five ringside judges scored the fight in Barr’s favour. There are only three judges’ scores taken into account and the automatic computer eliminated the verdicts of two of those who’d sided with Barr.
She lost 2-1. Such are the flaws in the methods, one judge had Barr the winner 40-36; another, mere feet away, had Hogan the 40-36 winner.
“That makes it worse,” Barr says. “Loads of people at the fight came up to me and said that they couldn’t believe it. Some of these people are judges. You don’t need to hear that. It sort of rubs salt into the wound.
“I wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone. It’s not just a fight. It’s not just a win or a loss when it comes to an Irish senior final. There are opportunities that you’re fighting for. There are doors that have closes for me not.
“A win would have meant more internationals, more sponsorship and more chances.”
It’s only three years since Barr took up the sweet science. The notion had always been in her head. “I wanted to box when I was younger,” Barr says, “but Mum was always like: ‘Ah that’s just a notion’. About three years ago, I went to Mourne Golden Gloves and they told me it was just for boys, but they took me in on a trial.”
There, she boxed with the likes of three-time Irish champion Tammy-Lee Diver. She’d found her calling.
“I never felt more alive,” Barr says. “I was there for a short while with the Mournes and then I moved to Twin Towns.
“Every goal I’ve set myself, I’ve achieved. That night I first walked into the Mourne gym, if you’d said to me that I’d be in a ring with the Irish number one at my weight and in a senior final, no way I’d have believed you.”
Two weeks ago, she put her old rival, Alexandra Kornaga to the sword in the semi-final. They worked hard on the game plan for Kornaga – ‘she just doesn’t know what the back foot is,’ as Barr puts it – and she won it style. She won by the ‘hit and move’ tactic, just as Barry Gillespie and Shane McHugh had advised.
The road to the South Circular Road had been anything but straightforward. The alarm rang at 6 o’clock every morning. On two of those mornings, she’d meet with strength and conditioning coach Pearce Lafferty; the others, she’d work on her cardio.
In the evenings, she’d clock into the Twin Towns BC gym from 7-9.
“It was just a routine. There were days that I’d lack motivation, but I was lucky to have the boys there,” she says. “Shane and Barry were brilliant. They were always there, anytime I wanted them.
“Paul Darby, too, was a brilliant help. I sparred with Barry and Paul. They helped me so much.
“It’s a very lonely sport, boxing. I had to work so hard, but I was lucky to have the preparation that I had.”
Until the Celtic Cup, she also spent time training at the High Performance Unit in Dublin, under Liam Brereton. Last Friday, Brereton was manning the red corner in which Barr’s opponent, Hogan, stood.
For ten, sometimes twelve rounds she hammered the pads held by Gilespie, an Irish Youth champion in 2000. They were ready.
“We did everything that we could, but it just didn’t work out,” she sighs.
The road back is long. These Championships were held early with 2016 a big year with World Championships and Olympic Games. It’ll be 14 months until the next Elite Seniors get underway.
Barr may ask for a box-off for the Worlds, but it unsure of her next move. As a senior boxer, obtaining fights will be hard, but she hopes to get a bout for the Twin Towns BC show in February and will defend her Celtic Cup title in September.
“It’s a long season with not a lot of girls competing,” she says. “I was back in on Monday, training harder than ever. It’s like an addiction, this. It’s just something I do. A routine. Twice a day, maybe four days a week now.
“I was definitely a wee bit sickened last Friday night, but for me it’s always a lesson and never a failure.”
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