Kieran Joyce competed in the men’s light-middleweight boxing at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, winning his opening bout before losing a disputed majority decision to Finland’s Joni Nyman.

The result was a controversial one that typified Olympic boxing at the time, noting that Joyce’s opponent was cautioned on a number of occasions for holding without receiving the public warning that would have secured the verdict for Joyce.

Joyce stopped Basil Boniface of the Seychelles in his first bout. The Irish boxing team at LA competed from a training base at Lake Placid, New York – the first time the team had benefited from a proper pre-Olympic camp with quality sparring in appropriate conditions, which included boxers from Uganda, Zimbabwe, Benin and Central Africa.