Gold medals crowning touch for Olympic trio

THREE gold medals put the perfect finishing touch to what was a remarkable week for Irish boxing at the Olympic qualifying tournament here on Saturday, with John Joe Joyce, Darren Sutherland and Ken Egan not only qualifying for Beijing, but winning their respective divisions.

On an afternoon when five of the 11 finals fell by the wayside as a result of boxers packing their bags after achieving their qualification targets, it was left to the three Irishmen to thrill those in attendance.

John Joe Joyce came off a slow start to share the first round of his light welterweight showdown with Egidijdus Kavaliauskas of Lithuania, but the contest went no further when Kavaliauskas failed to come out for the second.