IN THE Silk Market, John Joe Joyce speaks the universal language. He barters, he haggles, he rolls his eyes as if someone’s selling snake-oil here.

His party-piece is the walk. The stall workers chase after him, buying the charade. “Okay, okay,” they chatter. And business recommences. If life as a Traveller teaches anything, it is that price is a moving target. “They don’t know what they’re dealing with,” chuckles Joyce. “I aim for a price of 5pc of what they’re asking. Usually I get it.”

The days are dragging long and heavy in the village now. The novelty is spun. When you find yourself more interested in the chicken on your plate than the proximity of the Williams sisters, you know that you’re done with goosebumps. Maybe of all the boxing stories fluttering out of China these past days, that of Ireland’s Traveller team-mates has been the least explored.

Joyce and John Joe Nevin both come from Mullingar. Their families aren’t especially friendly and, between them, there sits a subtle rivalry. They don’t spar with one another in the gym and, outside, they keep an invisible distance. Respect is more important than affection.

Theirs has been a strange, satellite world these past few days. Life around them is giddy and expectant. Three Olympic medals have fallen the way of Ireland’s boxers and, on a certain level, minds are being drawn to home. So they’ve watched Kenny Egan, Darren Sutherland and Paddy Barnes extend life in the cocoon and tried their best to be a part of that. Barnes is maybe Joyce’s closest friend in boxing. And John Joe comforts himself that in some gentle, undocumented way, he might have contributed to Paddy’s glory.

On Thursday night, he went to the Bird’s Nest for the first time and he’s been up to the Great Wall. When Usain Bolt clowned his way to a 100m world record, Joyce sat on the end of a bed in his room and found himself whooping inadvertently. Beijing has been wonderful, but home is tugging sharply now. Nevin says he will board the plane on Tuesday with a contented heart.

He’s just 19 and he knows that he’s going home to a proud embrace. The Mongolian, Badar Uugan-Enkhbat, just had too much craft for him, too much wile. He felt like a kid swinging windmills at a man. Little things now console him. He won a fight against, Abdelhalim Ourradi, an Algerian who beat him previously. A Moldovan he beat during qualifying in Pescara, now has an Olympic medal. “I know now that I’m as good as any of them,” says Nevin. “Yeah, it’s heartbreaking to look back.

When you’re on your own, it’s hard. You think a lot. But I have to remember my age. My day will come.

Best

“I’ll get something big out of boxing. I honestly believe that, when I’m 24 or 25, I am going to be one of the best in the world. “But four years to London? That’s a bit too long ahead to think about right now.” When Nevin secured his Olympic ticket in Pescara, he was deemed four years ahead of what the High Performance Programme had targeted. The world and his friend came slapping his young back. Then the Nevins looked to book a room in Mullingar and they might as well have been chasing a casino in Salt Lake City. “I was sickened,” he says of the hapless charade that unravelled. “I remember wondering ‘What am I doing this for when I’m getting no respect anywhere?’ The only thing you get is selfrespect. And the respect of your family.

But not respect from the fella who owns the hotel or the pub. “But there was a place in Co Monaghan that got on to me. The Schull Inn. A small place, but it was nice of them to do it. Still, I had to travel there from Mullingar, my home town. We had tried 20 or 30 different places. “Then they want me to accept awards from them. It’s hard to accept those awards at the end of the year when they won’t let you in for a family celebration.” He knows the reason and it’s not something that he side-steps. Too many Traveller gatherings end in chaos and the easy thing is to see them as one, great band of trouble. Generalisations sour the good ones. Nevin says he hopes the sight of two Travellers in Irish singlets at the Beijing Games might unchain a few prejudiced minds now. But he’ll believe it only when he sees it. “You don’t really know,” he sighs.

“If a place has a rule of not letting Travellers in, they’re going to stick to it. “In all fairness, some Travellers do go in and wreck a place. But not my family. They respect me and don’t want to give me a bad name. Any place I’d be, I guarantee there’d be no messing. “Anyway, settled people can go in and have a row, but you don’t the see the pubs barring other settled people because of it. Look, hopefully, they’ll accept who I am now.” Joyce sits next to him, listening and nodding gently. “I think a lot of Travellers would be proud of us coming out to the Olympics he says. “Maybe not all of them. But two boxers from Mullingar at the Olympics. I’m proud of that.

But I’m also proud to represent my country and represent my family. “At the end of the day, we’re both from Ireland, no different from any other lads.” Living in a house has never distanced either from the Traveller culture. Both are proud of their roots. Nevin adored the wandering days of his childhood, when the family’s summers were spent on the road, endlessly pitching up in new towns, meeting new people. “I loved that,” he says. “It was just like holidays to me. We’d go wherever, as long as there was a camp, a place to stay. But we’ve packed in all that now. We just started to get it hard to find places because of our Traveller background.” Joyce says boxing has been his salvation.

A “messer” at 16, he changed because he could. Dominic O’Rourke is his club coach in Athy, Brian McKeown is Nevin’s in Cavan. Both inspirational men. Yet, it was the High Performance Programme, specifically the guidance of Gary Keegan, Billy Walsh and Zaur Antia and, initially, Jim Moore, that showed them how a kid could chase a dream. What happens next is, essentially, a matter of choices. Joyce says the disappointment of losing a count-back verdict to Felix Diaz of the Dominican Republic has left him “feeling old.”

Desire

He’s 20 now, but has been on the High Performance programme for practically five years. And the odd thing about this obsession, the really inexplicable dimension to John Joe Joyce’s desire to box, is that he would not cross the road to see a contest. Yet, already, he’s begun to miss the rituals of training. The ache of fatigue in the evenings.

The butterfly tension approaching a competition. You see, he is part of a boxing dynasty. This isn’t simply a hard pastime. It’s a family’s way of life. “I’ve had a knot in my stomach watching the other lads fighting this week,” he says. “It’s struck me that the three of them might not have had any fun so far. But they have medals. When they go home, they can have the fun. “I’m out of the competition, trying to have fun. But I’m not having it.

I’m just thinking about my performance. In the back of your head, you’re wishing you got a medal. But I didn’t. “So you want to go home now. It’s been five weeks. It’s not even that, we’ve done so much travelling for the whole year and I’m not a big fan of going away.

I like to be at home. Just to be with people I know. “What will be, will be. If God wants me to win something, that will happen. But I have my health, that’s the important thing. And I got the Hungarian (Gyula Kate) off my back.”

So they sit in the shadow of the story here. Two Traveller boys with musical fists who didn’t quite manage to out-fox the wind. No matter, they will be going home with heads held high.

Build-up

“It’s been amazing,” says Nevin. “I mean I’m not even meant to be here. This has just been a buildup for whatever I choose now. Be it the professional game or staying amateur for 2012. I’ve an open mind.

I’ve been on the biggest stage in the world. I mean if I went to another Olympics, it would be just like another tournament. I don’t think it would affect me whatsoever. “And the other lads have done well. I’m just proud to be a member of the team.” Joyce already has a schedule, but no certainty. “Four years looks like 20 from here,” he sighs. “It’s a long, long time away. You don’t really know what’s going to happen.

Look at Roy Sheahan. Got injured a couple of weeks before the qualifiers, end of his Olympic chance. “The same thing could happen us. You could put on weight. You mightn’t perform, you mightn’t improve. Right now, I’m not thinking about four years. Four years might never come round. “For me, I’m just looking three months down the road now. Getting myself ready for the Europeans. After that, the Seniors. The Worlds. You just have to break things down.

“I know in a few more years, I’ll be physically more mature. In a boxing sense, we’re still babies. But, right now, four years feels like 100,000 miles. But I got here. And walking around the village, seeing all those stars and knowing that I’m an Olympian too, means a lot to me. “No-one can ever take that away.”