Moscow magic guarantees medals for Irish quartet

IRELAND will have four boxers fighting for medals at the European senior boxing championships in Moscow today after another sensational day at the Ice Palace.

Mullingar bantamweight John Joe Nevin (Cavan BC) celebrated his 21st birthday with an emphatic 6-1 victory over Frenchman, Nourdine Aitihya, Donegal featherweight, Tyrone McCullough (Illies/GG), on his first major assignment in an Irish vest, outpointed Piotr Apostol (Moldova) 13-2 while experienced Athy lightweight, Eric Donovan (St Michaels BC) dished out a 10-2 beating to the Ukranian, Dimitry Bulenkov. There was a huge disappointment for the young Mayo man, Ray Moylette (St Annes, Westport) who lost to David Muellar from Germany in the worst possible fashion. Moylette, who won a world youths title in Mexico only two years ago, came from 2-0 down in the first round to lead 4-2 before Muellar came back courtesy of some interesting scoring to lead 5-4 and when Moylette tied it 5-5 at the end of the contest the verdict went to countback. But even the countback could not separate them and the decision was handed over to the judges who gave their verdict to the German leaving the Irish team manager, Des Donnelly, scratching his head. “Ray was 4-2 up with a few seconds to go and suddenly he ended up 5-4 down,” he said. “Then he came back with a point to leave it 5-5. It will be interesting to see where the punches came from to level the score when we look at the scoresheet.”

John Joe Nevin, a bronze medallist at last year’s world championships in Milan, was oozing confidence after his 6-1 win over Nourdine Aitihya. “I box like’s it’s in my own back garden and let them come to fight me – it’s not me coming to fight them,” he said. “They have to beat me it’s not that I have to beat them. I have a quarter-final on Wednesday and it is not bad to get into the last eight in Europe. Hopefully the performance will go right again and I’ll bring back another medal.”