Its just 5 days until the first bell at Paris 2024 – and the advent of Irish boxing’s Olympic centenary
Another Munster man, Limerick southpaw Andy Lee, was Ireland’s only fistic representative at the 2004 Games in Athens, Greece.
Lee, boxing out of the St Francis BC in Limerick and one of the first members of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association’s High Performance Unit, qualified for Athens at the 2004 European Senior Championships in Pula, Croatia.
The three-time Irish Elite champion was celebrating on the double in Pula as he also secured a bronze medal in addition to his Olympic berth.
Lee, a silver medal winner at the 2002 AIBA World Youth Championships in Cuba, made an impressive Olympic debut after outclassing Mexico’s Alfredo Lopez.
But he then agonisingly lost on a countback in the next phase to Nassan D’Dam N’Jikam of the Cameroon following a 54-point thriller.
Just two points separated the combatants on accepted scores after a 27-27 tie, but Lee, who had ex Irish head coach Billy Walsh working his corner, became the first Irish boxer to bow out of an Olympiad on the dreaded countback.
N’Jikam exited to eventual gold medalist, Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov of Russia, in the next phase. Gaydarbekov beat Kazakhstan’s Gennady Golovkin, the current world pro kingpin, on a countback in the final.
The light-middleweight class was scrapped for the 2004 Games and Olympic boxing was now back down to 11 weight categories. Cuba, once again, finished in pole position the medals table.
Lee and Amir Khan, who won silver at the 2004 Games, were the only two boxers from Ireland and Great Britain to qualify for Athens. Both Lee and N’Jikam claimed WBO World middleweight titles after switching codes.
Team Ireland: Athens 2004
Middleweight: Andy Lee (St Francis)
Beat Alfredo Lopez (Mexico) 38-23
Lost to Nassan N’Dam Njikam (Cameroon) 27-27 (44-42 on a countback)
Check out Athens 2024:
A record 201 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in the Olympic Games. The overall tally for events on the programme was 301, one more than at the Sydney Games in 2000.
Most Popular
Popularity in the Games also soared, as 3.9 billion people had access to the television coverage compared to 3.6 billion for Sydney. This global audience enjoyed coverage of never-before-seen sports such as women’s wrestling, which was included in the programme for the first time.
Records Tumble
Swimmer Michael Phelps won six gold medals and set a single-Games record with eight total medals. Leontien Ziljaard-van Moorsel became the first female cyclist to earn four career gold medals, reaching a total of six Olympic medals, while canoeist Birgit Fischer became the first athlete in any sport to win two medals in each of five Olympic Games.