Lisa O'Rourke: 'I haven’t given up on my Olympic dream'

On May 19th, 2022, Lisa O’Rourke literally had the world at her feet.

As rags to riches stories go, they don’t come more eye-catching than a young woman from West Roscommon taking the boxing world by storm and becoming world champion.

But life inside the ring has been far from plain sailing since then. A broken thumb ruled her out of last year’s European Championships — where her sister Aoife retained her middleweight title — and the Elite championships where an Irish title would have put her in pole position for a tilt at the Olympic qualifiers in Poland at the end of June.

When it came to being considered for those European Games earlier this summer, she simply hadn’t enough work done. Such is the fragility of sport at the highest level. On top of the world one day, utterly frustrated and lonely the next.

“It has been tough, even though Aoife has been here to help me. Sometimes you’d be wishing that you’d be there with her inside the ring. You question yourself — why am I getting all these injuries, what have I done to deserve this?

“You think it’s all settling down and the next thing, something else happens. You’re training full time, you feel as if you’re turning every stone. But it’s part and parcel of sport — you’re going to have the bad days,” she explained.

Crucially, all is far from lost. The spectre of Olympic qualification will appear once more next March where, if selected, Lisa will have the opportunity to book her ticket on the plane alongside Aoife to Paris next summer — the scenario that, no doubt, Lisa, Aoife, the O’Rourke family and County Roscommon have been dreaming of.

Given the time she has missed in the competitive arena, however, it will be a tough ask, especially if Amy Broadhurst, who won a gold medal at the same World Championships in Istanbul nearly 15 months ago, decides to return for a second shot at Olympic qualification in the light welterweight division (66kgs) despite suffering a surprise defeat against Great Britain’s Rosie Joy Eccles in the quarter-finals of the European Games. Throw in the challenge of Lisa having to move down from her World Championship-winning weight of 70kgs to 66kgs, and it’s fair to deduce that the biggest challenge of her career is coming down the tracks.

“I’d like to think that I’ll come out of it stronger. If things were to pick up for me again, I’ll be able to look back and help other people that might go through something similar. I’ll be able to advise them and tell them that it does work out eventually.

“You’ll always have the support of friends and family but a lot of it, mentally, is on yourself — how you handle it. It’s all good and well people telling you that you’ve been unlucky. But if you haven’t experienced it, you really don’t know what it feels like.

“If Paris works out, it would be amazing. To come out the other side, it would be a huge accomplishment personally, but I’m well aware of how hard I’ll have to work to get there,” she highlighted.

From surprising Mozambique’s Alcinda Helena Panguane on that never-to-be-forgotten summer’s evening in Istanbul, it feels as if Lisa has been playing catch-up since.

A broken bone in her right thumb ruled her out of last September’s European Championships, but she wasn’t too hard on herself as she felt that 2022 had been very good to her after winning the European U-22 championships as well as the Worlds.

In preparation for the Elite Championships in January where her sister Aoife won her fourth title, she broke her thumb in the exact same spot after only two sparring sessions. She subsequently required surgery and only got her cast off a few days before the Elites.

“They say that a broken bone comes back stronger, but it was different for me, I guess. I was half considering boxing in the Elites, but I thought the better of it,” she revealed.

She was assessed for the European Games, but her lack of competitive action counted against her.

“I’m not sure if I 100 per cent believed that I was going to get picked, considering I had no real sparring done. But I would have regretted taking the easier option by not even trying to make the team. I just decided to do the assessments, sure what’s the worst that could have happened? At least I could say I tried to get selected.

“But I’d be lying if I said that it did hurt (not getting selected). I was still trying to believe in myself, thinking that I would get the nod. But it was always in the back of my head that I hadn’t the work done. Amy (Broadhurst) had won the European title and had the Elites behind her. Grainne Walsh and Christina Desmond — two excellent boxers — were in contention as well, so I really was up against it.

“Amy came out as number one and went to the European Games. It didn’t go her way but that’s sport. So that has opened the door for us again ahead of the next round of qualifiers next March,” she pointed out.

Lisa’s decision to undergo laser eye surgery after she broke her thumb the second time was a case of trying to kill two birds with the one stone. But her eyes have taken longer to heal than expected, robbing her of more valuable sparring time inside the ring.

“I had planned to go to a multi-nations tournament in Poland last May. But the eyes were bothering me. You only have one set of eyes, so I’ve been playing the waiting game since.

“That allowed me to concentrate on Gaelic football with Roscommon and put more commitment into that because I wasn’t worried about getting hit in my eyes. But I’ve just resumed full-on contact training, so, hopefully, I can get a run at it now,” she hoped.

The main focus will be on winning an Elite title next November before attention will turn to next March’s Olympic qualifiers. Lisa is expecting all the big guns to be in contention.

“I’m presuming the likes of Amy (Broadhurst) is going to give it a second run. I haven’t been talking to her but I’m taking it that they’ll all be there.” 

With doubt surrounding boxing at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Lisa may have — pardon the pun — only one shot at fulfilling her Olympic dream. But she’s looking at the bigger picture.

If LA doesn’t work out (in 2028), it won’t be the end of the world. The Olympics is huge, and I really want to get there, but whether boxing is an Olympic sport down the road is out of my control. I know that there will be boxing at the Paris Olympics, so that’s my focus.

“I haven’t given up on my Olympic dream. Knowing that Aoife will be there makes me that bit hungrier. It’s a huge motivation to keep going.

“I’m going to throw everything at it. If it goes my way, great. If not, I’ll move on and face the next challenge. I won’t be sulking if I don’t make it. I’ll still be in Paris either way, supporting Aoife,” she concluded.

A county holds its breath.