Irish trio within sight of Olympic qualification
Sutherland, who earned star billing yesterday in his punch-up Zoran Mitrovic (Serbia), now finds himself in the best position of all because if he loses tomorrow’s semi final to the Muldovian, Victor Cotiujanschii, he gets a second bite of the cherry in a box-off between the beaten semi-finalists for a third place available at middleweight.
In the case of the others they must make the final if they are to join Paddy Barnes and John Joe Nevin on the flight to Beijing next August.
He may have a second chance but nobody is more determined than Sutherland to make it through to Saturday’s finals after an exciting display against the courageous Serbian who with everything thrown at him in the last round, still managed to stay up. A former welterweight, he won the first round 4-3 but that was the last time he saw daylight because Sutherland was all over him with jabs, hooks, combinations and vicious uppercuts.
Sutherland won the second round 11-5 but it was in the third that he really did the damage. He put his man on the floor with a body shot early while two standing counts later on had everyone convinced the fight was over with Sutherland leading 27-11. The boxers were called out for the fourth before Sutherland got the verdict on a computer score of 38-17.
“I landed some meaty shots in the third round — I felt them down to my socks — but he is some tough boy,” Sutherland said. “The referee did him no favours. He could have given him a few standing counts.
“Then I thought it was over. I took my stuff off and then the referee came over and I said get them back on. I was enjoying it. I did not want it to be finished.
“I must have hit him with at least 10 shots that should have merited a standing count. I think the referee was enjoying it. I love a good scrap and when I get the opportunity I’m going to have one.
“Now I am into the semi-finals so no matter what happens now I have a guaranteed box-off for Olympic qualification spot.”
Kenneth Egan’s performance was more calculated — picking his man off with clinically clean precise punches. He built on a 3-1 first round lead, winning the second 3-1 and the third 4-0 en route to a 13-4 win.
“I boxed him before in a round robin tournament in Germany and he was up after the second round so I upped the pace, dropped him in the third and beat him by a big margin,” the light heavyweight said.
“It was nice to get the lead after the start. I just built on that and made him miss. I am good at counter-punching and building on a lead. I got through with clean shots — when I throw a shot I want to score.”
He now renews rivalry with a former European junior silver medallist, Gottlieb Gazis (Germany) whom he also beat when they last met.
Zuar Antia, technical coach to Irish boxing’s high performance squad, was furious yesterday when the result of John Joe Joyce’s light welterweight quarter-final with Gkevorgk Gkalstian, went to a count-back. It went in favour of the Mullingar man, 41-37, after the computer score tied the boxers at 18 points apiece. It put Joyce through to tomorrow’s semi-finals when a victory over Harun Sipahi of Germany will guarantee him a place in Beijing.
“Johnny won that contest by at least six points,” fumed Antia. “I just don’t know what the judges were seeing but it was certainly not what we were looking at.”
The Greek won the first round 5-4 but they were level at 9-9 at the end of the second and Joyce finally led 13-12 at the end of the third. He went two points up in the final round but some dubious scores fell to Gkalstian and he was a point up going into the final 10 seconds.
“I was always confident I was going to win the contest,” Joyce said. “I knew it was desperately close and I just wanted to stay relaxed.
“I kept my head together and I did not allow anything to distract me. I think I was one point down with 10 seconds remaining. The scoring was ridiculous. I thought I should have been winning it easy but I was not going to let it get to me.
“After the dodgy first round I was confident all the way through the fight that I could win it. After the first round I felt so good. I was asking myself ‘what am I doing here? I should be pulling away from this guy’. I thought this lad is not in my league at all. But I was boxing a Greek in Greece.”
And if the judging was bad in that contest there was more to come in the featherweight quarter-final featuring John Joe’s cousin, David Oliver Joyce, who suffered a surprise 19-17 loss to a gangly Swedish southpaw, Bashir Hassan.
It was an untidy contest as Joyce tried to fight his way inside where the Swede kept him tied up in constant tangle of arms. Several times the referee cautioned him but he failed to give him a public warning.
Joyce lost the first round 4-5, and the second 7-3 but, when he got inside with some big body shots, he won the third 4-2. He was always a point behind in the fourth when both boxers were on the floor.
Team manager, Jim Walsh, later lodged a failed appeal against the performance of the Armenian referee, Saren Ghazaryan.
“It was something we had to do,” he said. “The referee cautioned Hassan 14 times in all and four times in the final round. After three cautions the referee should have given him a public warning but there was no warning given in this case despite numerous cautions.”
One public warning would have resulted in a two point deduction for the Swede which would have tied the contest.
Earlier in the day Conor Ahern lost his flyweight quarter final 20-12 to Bato-Munko Vankeyeu (Belarus). Today is a rest day for the boxers with all the semi-finals scheduled for tomorrow.
IRISH IN ACTION TOMORROW
Light Welterweight semi-final: JJ Joyce (St. Michael’s, Athy) v H Sipahi (Germany); Middleweight semi-final: D Sutherland (St. Saviours) v V Cotiujanschii (Muldova); Light Heavyweight semi-final: K Egan (Neilstown, Dublin) v G Weiss (Germany).
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