John Joe Nevin

John joe speaks frankly about road to recovery on rt tonight

Mullingar boxer and Olympic silver medallist John Joe Nevin's road to recovery after an attack which left him with two broken legs will be documented in an RTÉ special tonight.

Nevin has told RTÉ about how he was "dragged right down to the bottom" in the wake of the incident, which took place in April of last year, and put his fledgling professional career in doubt.

“If you’re an athlete, a high-performance athlete, and you’re boxing all-year round, and then for something like that to come and happen to you, take you out for a few months, and you‘re in a wheelchair, it’s not the best of timing,” Nevin says on the Reality Bites documentary, which airs on RTÉ Two at 9pm tonight.

"I suppose, just working with the coach helped me, just talking to them every day, because I was in a bit of a bad spot, going drinking – pushing my wheelchair to the pub is not a nice place to be. Thank God I’m out of it now, and I’m in the right spot now.

"I finally got it into my head to get up and get out to America for some rehabbing," added Nevin, who credited talking to his family, along with looking at clips of performances during the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, as key in the road to recovery.

"My job is to win a world title, and that's what I'm going to try. I've got everything as an amateur, I've done everything I wanted there. No matter what, not even two broken legs will stop me chasing my dream."

Nevin returned to the Ring in September and November 2014, easily seeing off American pugilist Calvin Stifford and England's Jack Heath respectively.