Irish boxers hit training camp

THE IRISH boxing team have taken their preparations for the world championships to a new level at a training camp in France.

After touching down on Monday they were taken to a military base in Fontainebleau where they joined the French world championship boxing team at a training camp.

Roy Sheahan was able to take a full part in the training sessions. He had not been able to spar since the Ukraine tournament after damaging his hand.

While 11 boxers will go to the world championships in Chicago in a month’s time, High Performance have brought 13 to France including Carl Frampton who lost his featherweight berth to the recently recovered David Oliver Joyce and the talented middleweight Darren O’Neill, the understudy to Darren Sutherland.

With all the semi-finalists at the world championships guaranteed places in next year’s Olympic Tournament in Beijing, the IABA is putting a huge emphasis on the world championships which get underway at the University of Illinois on October 23.

“While obviously a place in the semi-finals would guarantee at least a bronze medal we are not thinking about medals right now,” Gary Keegan insisted. “What we want is that every boxer will perform to the best of his ability and beyond.”

With a huge Irish diaspora in the city, the boxers expect plenty of support in Chicago but this is going to be a difficult tournament for qualification.

Despite the notable absence of the Cubans, there is a record entry of 115 nations and 623 boxers participating.

For boxers who don’t qualify the European qualification tournaments take place early next year in Italy and Greece.

The team for the world championships has been built around the squad that took three gold and two silver medals from the EU championships in Dublin last June.

David Oliver Joyce, who was injured for that tournament, returns to displace Carl Frampton at featherweight but Frampton and middleweight Darren O’Neill are being groomed for next month’s multi-nations tournament in Cyprus and are training with the squad in Fontainebleau.

Fontainebleau squad: Light flyweight, Paddy Barnes (Holy Family GG); Flyweight, Conor Ahern (Baldoyle); Bantamweight, Ryan Lindberg (Immaculata); Featherweight, David Oliver Joyce (St Michael’s Athy) and Carl Frampton (Midlands White City); Lightweight, Eric Donovan (St. Michael’s Athy); Light Welter, John Joe Joyce (St. Michael’s Athy); Welterweight, Roy Sheahan (St. Michael’s Athy); Middleweight, Darren Sutherland (St. Saviours OBA) Darren O’Neill (Paulstown); Light Heavy, Kenneth Egan (Neilstown); Heavyweight, John Sweeney (Dungloe); Super Heavy, Cathal McMonagle (Holy Trinity).