Egan and Sheahan ease through

KENNETH EGAN and welterweight Roy Sheahan are safely through their respective preliminaries and now Darren Sutherland can lead them into the last 16 — just one fight away from Olympic qualification — when he takes on Andranik Hakobyan (Armenia) in what will be his first bout at the world boxing championships in Chicago today.

Egan, Sheahan and Sutherland were dispatched to Chicago on a mission — to secure Olympic qualification — but on what was a sensational day for Irish boxing light fly Paddy Barnes raised eyebrows with a spectacular victory and Eric Donovan was in devastating form to highlight the fact that they will not be far away from qualification.

Sutherland, however, has been the focus of considerable attention here and he has been itching to get going since his opponent for the scheduled opener, Roy Albert Cook from Dominica, failed to make the weight and was sent packing.