Breakfast Gardiner chasing delicious Olympic dream

Clonmel super heavyweight Dean Gardiner won a second Irish title on Friday night at the National Stadium.

The Tipperary giant defeated rising Dublin hotshot Thomas Carty in the final fight of finals night at the National Senior Championships.

After the bout Gardiner spoke to irish-boxing.com and described how “It was dominant but it was a tough fight.”

“I had to push hard the whole way through, from the start to the finish

“He caught me with a lovely beautiful punch right at the start but because of my fitness I shook it off and did the job.”

Carty had been very confident going into the bout and even attempted to bet on himself to KO the reigning champ, but Gardiner admits that he took no notice of the youngster’s antics.

“To tell you the truth I hadn’t heard anything, I didn’t go on Facebook for the week, and that stuff doesn’t get to me anyway.”

“I focused on what I had to do and it was enough thank God.”

Now the Munster man is fully focused on the Olympic qualifiers in Turkey in April and becoming the first High Performance super heavyweight to go to an Olympics. Breakfast explained how “It’s my dream, it’s going to be very tough but I’m going to give it my best go.”

Indeed there are less slots available for the big men, but Gardiner is not one to complain, saying “sure look, its just a hurdle we’ll have to get over.”

“I’ll take a break for a week but then we’ll start training for the Olympic qualifiers.”

“I’ll have my Christmas dinner, but I’ll be back training as soon as possible.”