WHEN THE bell rang to end it all Kenny Egan fell to his knees and in despair laid his forehead on the blue canvas. A yard away his conqueror Zhang Xiaoping performed the same gesture but in gratitude.
Ireland's last and best hope of a gold medal from the Beijing Olympics finished in mild controversy and mere silver. The flag was raised but the anthem went unplayed.
There was some quibbling to be done about the scoreline of 11-7 which gave the gold to the tall Chinese boxer Zhang Xiaoping. Most reasonable observers felt that Egan had been shortchanged. So did Egan but he accepted his fate with a nice grace which defused the business. "I have had five fights here," he said, "and I think I have boxed out of my skin in the five of them. I gave 100 per cent. On the night he has got the decision and there is nothing I can do about it.
"I can control the way I fight. I can't control the five judges around the ring. If it had been in Dublin I don't know whether he would have got it, but that's how sport is. He came out on top. He is Olympic champion. I am second best which is heart-breaking, but that is sport."
When the dust settled and the controversy abated one could only reflect on the rueful words of Tony Jeffries, the English fighter whom Egan had beaten in Friday's semi-final. Reflecting that he, too, thought Egan had been a victim of a bad scoring system, Jeffries shook his head forlornly and said: "Still, I'd rather have got to the final and got robbed there than have a bronze."
And indeed it was a wonderful occasion. The Chinese won the first gold of the session and the house went wild. By the time Egan and Zhang emerged the great rhythmic roars of "Zhang! Zhang! Zhang!" competed to drown out the lusty warblings of a large Irish contingent who returned to singing of the problems of social isolation in rural Athenry.
The fight, well down the bill for the day, thus got started in a wave of fervour from the stands. The judges perhaps got carried away rewarding the home fighter in response to the impact punches made on the sound scale rather than on Egan.
Unfortunately for the Dubliner, whose forte is defence, he fell two points behind early on and had to go and hunt down his opponent, a task to which he is generally ill-suited.
He came close but his position was something of a catch 22. When he got close the crowd got more excited and when the crowd got more excited the judges got excited and rewarded Zhang. Twice clear scoring shots of Egan's were marked up to his opponent.
Yet, as Egan willingly conceded, Zhang had fought well. Silver was less than Egan had hoped for, but the medal and its colour were already beginning to shape the rest of his life, as he considered staying on in the gruelling amateur ranks with a view to competing in London in 2012.
"Olympic silver medallist? It's not bad but I still wanted that gold medal. I felt I was in a position to get it but it just slipped through my fingers." For the Irish boxers, all five of whom were beaten by eventual gold medallists, that slippage was the story of the games.