Hero"s welcome awaits medal-winner Darren in two towns
Dunboyne and Navan are this week preparing to honour Olympic bronze medallist Darren Sutherland, one of Ireland"s three medal-winners at the Olympic Games in Beijing, who arrived home yesterday (Tuesday) evening with the rest of the Irish squad. There was great excitement last week in Navan, where the Sutherland family live, as well as in Dunboyne, where Darren went to school in St Peter"s College, and was student of the year there four years ago, as he progressed through his bouts in the Workers" Gymnasium in the Chinese capital. It was the climax of four years" intensive training for the boxer who returned to second-level education as a 20-year-old to do his Leaving Certificate and combine a third-level education with the elite performance athlete programme at Dublin City University, where he has been living and training on campus since leaving the Dunboyne school in 2004. His parents in Balreask Manor in Navan, Tony and Linda; sisters Nicole and Shaneika, and Darren"s former school principal in Dunboyne, Eamonn Gaffney, have all expressed delight that the 26-year-old is returning from the world"s greatest sporting contest with a bronze medal. 'It"s beyond my wildest dreams to be standing on a podium at the Olympics receiving a medal,' Sutherland said on Saturday as he received the bronze from Pat Hickey of the International Olympic Committee. He lost his final fight, the semi-final on Friday morning, to Britain"s James Degale, by a 10-3 score, but had earlier defeated Venezuela"s Alfonso Blanco Porro on Wednesday last 11-1, and Algeria"s Kassel Nabil. He now intends turning professional. 'We are very proud - he"s bringing home a medal, and we couldn"t be happier,' his father, Tony, a native of the island of St Vincent in the Caribbean, declared. 'He"s our champion.' The boxer has vowed to return to St Peter"s in Dunboyne with his bronze medal, where he presented the end-of-year awards in May of this year and was student of the year himself in 2004. Navan Town Councillor Peader Tobin is proposing a that a civic reception to honour the acheivements of the boxer be held in Navan.