Smith's injury worries clear as Olympic dream remains alive

Paul Fitzpatrick

Cavan fighter Ceire Smith’s Olympic dream remains alive  - but her immediate plans are up in the air.

The Ballyhaise southpaw is entering the final 12 months of her competitive career, she believes, although uncertainty surrounds when her sport will return to action.

Smith was in the form of her life and was due to box in the Olympic qualifier in London in March but suffered a broken thumb at a training camp in Italy. That injury has now healed but with the ongoing lockdown, she is unsure of when she will return to action.

The Cavan BC boxer has enrolled in a Masters course in physiotherapy in UCC which she deferred last year in order to attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games. However, with the Games now postponed until 2021, her plans have been thrown up in the air.

She hopes, though, to pursue her ambition of making it to the world’s greatest sporting stage.

“It's a make-or-break situation,” she told The Anglo-Celt. 

“Even if I wanted to take a step back, if I ever wanted to fight competitively again, I can't just get an easy fight because I'm at elite-level. My record already stands, I'm at elite level and I'll never turn around and look for an easy fight. 

“Once you go from novice, to intermediate, to elite, no matter if I took a step back and then came back it's not going to be an easy fight; it's going to be a huge effort. I will still train and stay involved in the sport because, to be honest, it's routine and I love it. 

“I love the training and I've made so many friends, I've travelled so much... just even the atmosphere in our own gym when walking in, I've always enjoyed walking into Cavan Boxing Club, with Brian [McKeown] and people you've grown up with, moreso than when you go away and compete up in Abbottstown, it's a totally different vibe, although Abbottstown is an incredible facility.”

The decorated Cavan fighter, who is the current Anglo-Celt Sports Star of the Year, has been training at home and is remaining positive.

“We've time now for my hand to heal and keep up the fitness… I was rushing to be ready for a qualifier in Paris in May but that's now gone and I don't know when the next one is going to be. So, I've time to get the hand right and, in a way, I was lucky that I didn't get the surgery because there's no need now after all this happened. 

“I'd love to be able to look back say that I've qualified, I've done it and walk away happy and if I don't, if I even just get there, if I just get the chance to actually compete, injury-free and everything going well... if I lose, I lose but I can throw my hat at it and say I did everything I could, that I was in my best shape, health was good and injury-free then, if it is not meant to be, I can walk away happy.”

For an in-depth interview with Ceire Smith on her career and her hopes for the future, see this week’s Anglo-Celt print edition.