Kenneth "Kenny" Egan (born 7 January 1982) is an Irish politician and boxer from
Clondalkin
Clondalkin ( ; ) is a suburban town situated 10 km south-west of Dublin city centre, Ireland, under the administrative jurisdiction of South Dublin. It features an 8th-century round tower that acts as a focal point for the area. Clondal ...
,
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
best known for winning a silver medal in the final of the 81 kg,
Light-Heavyweight
Light heavyweight, also referred to as junior cruiserweight or light cruiserweight, is a weight class in combat sports.
Boxing Professional
In professional boxing, the division is above and up to , falling between super middleweight and cruiserw ...
boxing final at the
2008 Olympics. He won the European Gold Medal in the 2008 Athens Olympic Qualifiers and a European Bronze Medal in 2006 and 2010 at Light-heavyweight. He was elected to
South Dublin County Council
South Dublin County Council ( ga, Comhairle Contae Átha Cliath Theas) is the authority responsible for local government in the county of South Dublin, Ireland. It is one of three local authorities created by the Local Government (Dublin) Act ...
for
Fine Gael
Fine Gael (, ; English: "Family (or Tribe) of the Irish") is a liberal-conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil ...
in the
2014 local elections.
Career
Egan currently fights out of the Neilstown Boxing Club that is based in Dublin. He fights in the 81 kg class that is more commonly known in boxing circles as Light-Heavyweight.
Egan won the national championships from 2005 to 2007, where he twice beat
Darren O'Neill
Darren O'Neill is an Irish amateur boxer. He won a gold medal at the 2009 EU Championships, and silver at the 2010 European Championships and 2014 EU Championships. He also captained Ireland's boxers at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
Bo ...
in the final. In all he has won 10 Irish titles, including 7 light-heavyweight belts.
Egan announced his retirement following a defeat to Westmeath's Joe Ward in the National Stadium, 22 Feb 2013.
2006 European Amateur Boxing Championships – Bulgaria
At the
2006 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria he lost his semifinal to Russian eventual winner
Artur Beterbiyev
Artur Asilbekovich Beterbiev ( ce, Арту́р Асильбе́кович Бетерби́ев russian: Артур Асильбекович Бетербиев; born 21 January 1985) is a Russian-Canadian professional boxer. He is a unified l ...
.
Results
* Defeated
Robert Woge
Robert Woge (born 14 May 1984) is a retired German professional boxer. He is a former IBF Inter-Continental Light Heavyweight champion.
Professional career
Woge won the vacant IBF Inter-Continental Light Heavyweight title on February 2, 2013 ...
(Germany) RSCO 2
* Defeated
Mamadou Diambang Mamadou is a common given name in West Africa among predominantly Muslim ethnic groups such as the Mandé and Wolof people. It is a variant of the Arabic name Muhammad.
Academics
*Mamadou Diouf (historian), Senegalese professor of West African hi ...
(France) RSCO 3
* Beaten by
Artur Beterbiyev
Artur Asilbekovich Beterbiev ( ce, Арту́р Асильбе́кович Бетерби́ев russian: Артур Асильбекович Бетербиев; born 21 January 1985) is a Russian-Canadian professional boxer. He is a unified l ...
(Russia) RSCO 2
2007 World Amateur Boxing Championships, Chicago
At the
2007 World Amateur Boxing Championships
The 2007 AIBA World Boxing Championships were held in Chicago, United States from October 23, 2007 to November 3, 2007. It was held at the UIC Pavilion. It was the biggest World Championships in AIBA history.
The competition is under the super ...
held at the
University of Illinois Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois sy ...
's UIC Pavilion. He beat
Julius Jackson and
Julio Castillo
Julio César Castillo Torres (born 10 May 1988) is an Ecuadorian amateur boxer. He won two medals at the Pan American Games: a bronze in 2007 and a silver in 2011.
Career
At the 2006 South American Games, Castillo lost to Hamilton Ventura in t ...
then lost to
Marijo Sivolija
Marijo is a South Slavic masculine given name, cognate to Mario. Notable people with the name include:
*Marijo Baković (born 1982), retired Croatian long jumper
*Marijo Dodik (born 1974), Bosnian Croat football striker
*Marijo Marić (born 1977) ...
.
Results
* Defeated
Julius Jackson (Virgin Islands) RSCO 2
* Defeated
Julio Castillo
Julio César Castillo Torres (born 10 May 1988) is an Ecuadorian amateur boxer. He won two medals at the Pan American Games: a bronze in 2007 and a silver in 2011.
Career
At the 2006 South American Games, Castillo lost to Hamilton Ventura in t ...
(Ecuador) 16–10
* Beaten by
Marijo Sivolija
Marijo is a South Slavic masculine given name, cognate to Mario. Notable people with the name include:
*Marijo Baković (born 1982), retired Croatian long jumper
*Marijo Dodik (born 1974), Bosnian Croat football striker
*Marijo Marić (born 1977) ...
(Croatia) 17–9
Beijing 2008 Olympics campaign
At the first Olympic qualifier the southpaw was upset by
Ramazan Magomedov
Ramazan Magomedov (born in Dagestan) whose second name is also sometimes spelt Magamedau is a Belarusian amateur boxer who qualified for the 2008 Olympics at light-heavyweight.
The elusive Magomedov lost to Tony Jeffries at the 2007 World Cha ...
,
at the second he beat four fighters including
Kennedy Katende
Kennedy Katende (born 15 March 1985) is an Ugandan boxer from Kampala who qualified for the 2008 Olympics in the light-heavyweight division.
His second place behind Kenneth Egan was good enough, and he benefitted from his compatriot Badou Jack' ...
and made it to Beijing.
At the
2008 Olympics he once again defeated
Julius Jackson from The
Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Croix ...
in the round of 32. In the round of 16 he defeated
Bahram Muzaffer, the Turkish boxer, before overcoming Brazilian
Washington Silva in the quarter-final. This third victory guaranteed Egan and Ireland a medal, the third medal secured following
Paddy Barnes
Patrick Gerard Barnes (born 9 April 1987) is an Irish former boxer who competed as an amateur from 2005 to 2016 and as a professional from 2016 to 2019. As an amateur he competed in the light-flyweight division, representing Ireland at the 200 ...
and
Darren Sutherland
Darren John Sutherland (18 April 1982 – 14 September 2009) was an Irish professional boxer from Mulhuddart, Dublin. His amateur career was crowned by a 2008 Olympic bronze medal.
Early life
Sutherland was born in Dublin to Linda from Fingla ...
's advancement to the semi-finals. Egan beat
Tony Jeffries
Tony David Jeffries (born 2 March 1985) is an English former professional boxer who won a bronze medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics. In 2012, an undefeated Jeffries was forced to retire due to hand injuries.
Life and career
Jeffries was bor ...
, the British boxer, in the semi-final round. He lost to China's
Xiaoping Zhang in the Olympic Final Gold Medal match in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
on Sunday 24 August 2008.
European Olympic Qualifications – Pescara, Italy
* Defeated
Myasnik Sargsyan (Armenia) RSCO 3
* Defeated
Emil Krastev (Bulgaria) 29–8
* Beaten by
Ramazan Magomedov
Ramazan Magomedov (born in Dagestan) whose second name is also sometimes spelt Magamedau is a Belarusian amateur boxer who qualified for the 2008 Olympics at light-heavyweight.
The elusive Magomedov lost to Tony Jeffries at the 2007 World Cha ...
(Belarus) 17–13
European Olympic Qualifications – Athens, Greece
* Defeated
Alessandro Sinacore (Italy) 23–14
* Defeated
Daniel Kooij (Netherlands) 13–4
* Defeated
Gottlieb Weiss (Germany) 21–11
* Defeated
Kennedy Katende
Kennedy Katende (born 15 March 1985) is an Ugandan boxer from Kampala who qualified for the 2008 Olympics in the light-heavyweight division.
His second place behind Kenneth Egan was good enough, and he benefitted from his compatriot Badou Jack' ...
(Sweden) 15–10
2008 Olympic results
* Defeated
Julius Jackson (Virgin Islands) 22–2
* Defeated
Bahram Muzaffer (Turkey) 10–2
* Defeated
Washington Silva (Brazil) 8–0
* Defeated
Tony Jeffries
Tony David Jeffries (born 2 March 1985) is an English former professional boxer who won a bronze medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics. In 2012, an undefeated Jeffries was forced to retire due to hand injuries.
Life and career
Jeffries was bor ...
(Great Britain) 10–3
* Beaten by
Xiaoping Zhang (China) 11–7
Tributes
Following the final
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Mary McAleese
Mary Patricia McAleese ( ; ga, Máire Pádraigín Mhic Ghiolla Íosa; ; born 27 June 1951) is an Irish activist lawyer and former politician who served as the eighth president of Ireland from November 1997 to November 2011. She is an academic ...
and
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government, or prime minister, of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The office is appointed by the president of Ireland upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legisl ...
Brian Cowen
Brian Bernard Cowen (born 10 January 1960) is an Irish former politician who served as Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil from 2008 to 2011.
Cowen was elected to Dáil Éireann in 1984, for the constituency of Laois–Offaly and served in a ...
gave Egan some glowing tributes.
"I am delighted to learn of Kenny's wonderful accomplishment today in Beijing," the President said. "The people of Ireland are uplifted by this outstanding achievement which continues a tradition of Irish Olympic boxing excellence dating back to 1952."
Cowen echoed these remarks by saying "Kenny fought a brave fight and gave everything in a wonderful bout of top class boxing".
Final controversy
At the end of the third round in the gold medal contest between Egan and Xiaoping, the judges failed to score several punches landed by Egan that would have given him the lead. NBC announcers concurred on this point. The scoring system throughout the
Olympics
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
had been the topic of many debates, not only in this bout, but throughout many of the games. Irish bookmaker,
Paddy Power
Paddy Power is an Irish gambling company founded in 1988. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK Ireland (UKI) and International. UKI operations ...
, paid out all bets on Egan to win the gold, despite this not being the actual result.
Post Olympics
Kenny returned home from the Olympics with the rest of the Olympic team at
Dublin Airport
Dublin Airport (Irish language, Irish: ''Aerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath'') is an international airport serving Dublin, Ireland. It is operated by DAA (Irish company), DAA (formerly Dublin Airport Authority). The airport is located in Collinsto ...
and went back to Clondalkin to a hero's welcome. Since the Olympics, he has become a popular figure in Ireland and has appeared on TV chat shows and advertisements, and has been a part of the celebrity scene in Ireland. In November 2008 he released a DVD titled "Kenny Egan – Back from Beijing" which chronicles his journey to the silver medal in Beijing.
On Friday 28 February 2009 he was scheduled to fight at the national stadium in a match against the US, but he failed to turn up for the fight and appeared to have left the country, with more reports of him having left the country due to messages left on social networking site
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
. On Tuesday 3 March it was reported that he was in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and would return in a couple of days. He released a statement apologising to his teammates for the non-show against the US and for disappearing to New York. He also pulled out of the undercard programme of
Bernard Dunnes's World Title Fight Night at The O2 arena Dublin on Saturday 21 March, admitting that he would not be ready for it.
On 17 July 2009, Egan was back in action at the National Stadium where he outpointed Crumlin light middleweight
Darren Cruise, who retired at the start of round three when Egan was in the lead 16–2, in the Open Senior Light Heavyweight final.
On 1 August 2009, Egan lost a match to Sweden's
Babacar Kamara Babacar may refer to:
* Babacar (name)
*Babacar (band)
Babacar was a short-lived rock supergroup formed in England, featuring former members of Shelleyan Orphan, The Cure, and Presence. The group released one album in their brief existence, ...
.
He won the bronze medal at the
2010 European Amateur Boxing Championships
The Men's 2010 European Amateur Boxing Championships were held at the Megasport Sport Palace in Moscow, Russia from June 4 to June 13, 2010. It was the 38th edition of this biennial competition organised by the European governing body for amate ...
at Moscow, Russia after he lost to
Abdelkader Bouhenia from
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
in the semifinals.
In January 2011, Egan publicly said he suffers from a drink problem and has gotten help. "I was drinking too much. I was in a bad place. I was drinking too much. Ever since I got back from the games I just went mad on it and didn't stop" he said.
In February 2012 his long-time girlfriend Sharon McHugh, who was credited with helping him get back on the straight and narrow, called time on their 18-month relationship. In 2012, Egan was an analyst on the
2012 Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
boxing coverage on
RTÉ Sport. Egan was beaten by Joe Ward for the third consecutive time in the Elite Senior Finals in February 2013. The defeat forced Egan to retire. Westmeath powerhouse Ward credited Egan on the night but also said that he (Egan), was "the second best boxer in Ireland".
COVID-19 controversy
In August 2020, Egan breached public health guidelines during the deadly
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. It emerged that Egan failed to restrict his movements when he returned from a boxing event in Essex, England in early August 2020. He flew home to Ireland on August 15, according to a tweet on his Twitter page. However, it was later reported that Egan travelled to Co. Cork on August 22, just seven days later - public health guidelines at that time stated clearly that individuals who travel from countries that were not on the green list, such as Britain, must restrict their movements for 14 days when they arrive in Ireland.
Egan, a serving Dublin councillor at the time, subsequently resigned the Fine Gael party whip.
Egan was a pundit on
RTÉ
(RTÉ) (; Irish language, Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the Public broadcaster, national broadcaster of Republic of Ireland, Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on RTÉ Television, telev ...
for the coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Boxing events.
Politics
In February 2014, Egan confirmed that he would be running in the
2014 local elections as a
Fine Gael
Fine Gael (, ; English: "Family (or Tribe) of the Irish") is a liberal-conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil ...
candidate in the Clondalkin area. He was subsequently elected.
In December 2014 he got engaged to girlfriend Karen O'Sullivan. In October 2015 he announced on Twitter the birth of their daughter Kate. He was re-elected at the 2019 local elections.
Therapy and counselling
Kenneth Egan pursued a career in psychotherapy and counselling in 2018, having been awarded a BA (Hons) in integrative counselling & psychotherapy and a higher diploma in addiction studies, he began to practice as a counsellor based in his native Clondalkin. He helps people with motivation, resilience, leadership, alcohol misuse & abuse/addiction, mental health, therapy, health & well-being and trauma.
References
External links
*
First Qualifier
{{DEFAULTSORT:Egan, Kenneth
1982 births
Living people
Boxers at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Fine Gael politicians
Irish male boxers
Irish sportsperson-politicians
Light-heavyweight boxers
Local councillors in South Dublin (county)
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Olympic boxers of Ireland
Olympic medalists in boxing
Olympic silver medalists for Ireland
Sportspeople from County Dublin
People from Clondalkin