Irish trio guaranteed to be among the medals
However there was disappointment for Mullingar welterweight, John Joe Joyce (St Michael’s, Athy), a bronze medallist at the European championships in Liverpool two years ago, who went under 9-1.
Darren O’Neill turned in the best performance of his career to claim his first major championship medal and admitted he was driven by past disappointments.
The Paulstown southpaw put the record straight on what was an emotional day for him.
In Sergiy Derevyanchenko from the Ukraine he faced one of the best boxers in the tournament and a middleweight who has never been outside of the top six in the world rankings.
He got into an early lead and then grew in confidence as the fight progressed. He doubled over from what appeared to be a low blow at the start of the third round and this changed the course of the contest. The Ukranian got in the punches to level the score at 3-3 and kept up the pressure to go 5-4 in front but O’Neill remained cool and picked his shots to draw level and then landed the winning punch in the dying seconds of the contest for a 7-6 victory.
“It was a very tough fight,” O’Neill admitted. “He was very strong, he was good on his feet and he had a good defence. Going into the last round I was thinking about when I was in Bulgaria four years ago and the pain of losing that fight came back to me.
“I have worked so hard, I had numerous setbacks – broken bones, tendon trouble, joint trouble, the whole lot but I just kept working away.
“In Bulgaria Kenny (Egan) won his bronze medal and went on to win an Olympic silver medal two years later.
“I did not make it to the Olympics and, to be honest, I thought about chucking it at that stage. It was a killer blow. I looked at Kenny, he was 24 when he went to Bulgaria and won his medal. Now I have come here and won my medal and it’s just the best feeling ever.’’
Ireland’s newly crowned featherweight champion, Tyrone McCullough, is on his first major assignment in Moscow and yesterday he claimed another big scalp when he survived two standing counts to outpoint Azat Hovhannisyan from Armenia 6-3 in a thrilling contest.
Thanks to a southpaw right hand lead, delivered with accuracy, he was 3-0 ahead when he was given the first standing count early in the second round. The fact that the punch did not register a scoring point on the judges computers was ominous.
The second standing count, however, came as a result of a solid left hook to the head and earned the Armenian his first point of the contest at the end of the round.
The third round was a real thriller with the Armenian pressing forward and throwing a lot of punches. McCullough, who was called to the neutral corner to have a nick over his eye examined, kept his guard high and delivered some good right hands to his opponent’s head to win the contest 6-3.
Hovhannisyan, however, refused to accept the decision, threw his headguard out of the ring and would not go to the centre of the ring for the announcement of the result.
He now meets Ian Weaver from England for a silver medal in Friday’s semi-finals and he said he can’t wait for that.
Egan put the finishing touches on another memorable day for Irish boxing when he outpointed Estonian light heavyweight, Ainar Karlson, 7-4 to claim his second European bronze medal with the opportunity to cash it in for silver or even gold later in the week.
The score was level at a point apiece at the end of round one and Egan went 3-1 from two big left hooks to the head at the start of the second and when the Estonian levelled it again at 4-4 he edged a point clear and was never in trouble from then on.
John Joe Joyce was a point up before he got a public warning for holding in the first round and from there on the Ukranian, Taras Shelestyuk, appeared to pull points from the air en route to 9-1 result that did not do justice to the Mullingar man.
Today’s quarter-finalists: Light Flyweight: Paddy Barnes (Holy Family) v Thomas Stubbs (England) Bantamweight: John Joe Nevin (Cavan) v Gamal Yafai (England) Lightweight: Eric Donovan (St Michaels Athy) v Miklos Vargo (Hungary)