Victory sees Sutherland stay on track for Beijing

DARREN SUTHERLAND moved another step closer to fulfilling his Olympic dream when he made it through to the quarter-finals of the qualifying tournament in Athens last evening with an emphatic 27-7 victory over the Norwegian southpaw, Eneste Glodi.

Still nursing a tender left hand, it was a remarkable performance and was as emphatic as the score suggests.

Bombarding Glodi with a succession of right hands to the head and body, he shared the first round 3-3, won the second 10-3 when he picked up points from six successive right hands to the head, won the third 8-1 and scored six points without reply in the fourth.

“I did it more or less with one hand,” he said. “My left hand was a little bit tender today so I gave it a rest and I did all the work with my right hand, hooking and jabbing. Being a southpaw he was a sucker for a right hand. He was made for it.

“I’ll keep doing the same thing. I can box and I can fight. When you box someone like that — they are strong and they just want you to stand there in front of them and trade but as soon as I gave him a little bit of movement, slipping and stuff, it was difficult for him to handle that.

The camp was not unduly concerned about the injury to his hand but he will have further treatment in advance of today’s quarter-final clash with the Serbian, Zoran Mitrovic, a former welterweight, who beat Oliver Obradovic (Austria) 23-12 yesterday.

David Oliver Joyce was lethal in his 30-10 demolition of the Greek featherweight, Theodoros Papazov, scoring with every punch in the book and a succession of one-two combinations.

He won the first round 7-4, the second 9-2 and there were moments in the third round when it appeared as if he might stop his opponent on the 20-point rule before the Greek came back with a couple of shots that ensured he would see out the contest. Joyce won that round 8-3 and kept up the pressure in the final round, stalking his man, backing him on to the ropes and scoring with two fisted combinations.

“I was getting him with the one-two all the time and then my left hook worked for me as well,” he said. “But the punch that really worked for me was the right hook. I caught him with some savage right hooks that knocked the wind out of him.

In today’s quarter-finals he will meet Bashir Hassan from Sweden who did not impress when out-pointing a Belarussian, Mikhail Biarnadsk.

His cousin and St. Michael’s clubmate, John Joe Joyce, got his campaign off to best possible start when out-pointing Zdenek Chladek (Czech Republic) 18-8 in a tough light welterweight contest.

The 20-year-old Mullingar man scored his first point with a left hand jab that would be the key to his victory. He won the opening round 2-1, the second round 10-4 and the third 6-2 to give himself an 11-point cushion going into the last.

“I did not box as well as I would have liked and I still won by 10 points so I have to be very happy with that,” he admitted afterwards.

“My left jab was working well but I just could not catch him with the right uppercut — maybe once or twice — because he was taking those shots on his elbow.

He will meet Gkevorgk Gkalstian (Greece) in today’s quarter-finals. The Greek was far from impressive when outpointing Farhad Ajalov (Azerbaijan) 14-9 yesterday.