Euro joy for Triple J and O’Kane

IRELAND will have three boxers in semi-final action at today’s European Championships in Liverpool after big quarter-final wins for Olympic light welterweight John Joe Joyce and debutant Eamon O’Kane last night.

They join lightweight Ross Hickey on today’s programme to duplicate the performance of the team at the Olympic Games in Beijing.

John Joe Joyce, nicknamed ‘Triple J’, finally achieved his goal when he hammered out a 9-7 victory over Bulgarian Dimitar Shtilyanov to guarantee himself a bronze medal and a place in today’s semi-finals against old foe, Gyula Kate (Hungary).

“I have been to the quarter-finals at both the world and European Championships about six times and I fell short on every occasion,” Joyce said. “Thank God I got through today.

“There was pressure on me leading up to the fight — maybe it is because I got so near so many times and then with David Oliver (Joyce) losing — that kind of got to me today,” he said. “But I showed I can handle the pressure and that when the pressure is on me, I box better.”

The Bulgarian southpaw put him under added pressure from the start and claimed the first point with a right hook to the body before Joyce caught him with a straight right to the body to draw level at a point apiece.

“He was very awkward and he is very, very good,” Joyce said. “His distance was brilliant. I just could not get anything off him until halfway through the second round when I met him with a right hand. I just kept meeting him then.”

The second round ended 3-3 and they were still tied, 5-5, at the end of the third. Two perfectly-placed right hands gave Joyce a cushion for the first time and when the Bulgarian pulled one back as Joyce came to him, the Irishman caught him again with the right for a 9-7 victory.

Today he meets a familiar face when he bids to convert his bronze medal to silver after Gyula Kate beat Maksim Ignatiev (Russia) 8-4.

This will be their fifth meeting.

After the Hungarian won the first three, Joyce turned the tables in emphatic fashion at the Olympic Games in Beijing. “It will be exciting,” Joyce promised. “He is 3-1 up at the moment and I want to change all that. After the Olympics each of us has a score to settle.”

Eamon O’Kane, who spent most of his career in the shadows of Andy Lee, Darren Sutherland and Kenneth Egan, is appearing in his first major championship and will take home at least a bronze after a sensational 6-4 quarter-final victory over Andranik Hakobyan (Armenia) that was fashioned on a big right hand.

The 26-year-old Belfast man went into the contest with an injury to his left arm sustained in his first fight out here so the right hand was always going to be the main weapon in his armoury.

“We saw that he had a big right hand but his left was weak and he tended to drop it so that left him open to a big right hand over the top,” he said. “We decided to block and then close the gap, get in there and get the score. The right hand was the key and that suited me, on account of the problem with my left.”

He pressurised his man and kept him on the back foot throughout a first round that failed to produce a point and two right hands to the head gave O’Kane a 2-1 lead after the second.

It was level again at 3-3 at the end of a close third round and there were just 20 seconds remaining when O’Kane took the lead with another right hand and scored again with four seconds remaining to win 6-4.

There are times when the better boxer does not win and coach Billy Walsh insisted that was the case yesterday after heavyweight Con Sheehan lost to Petrisor Gananau (Romania) 4-2. The 20-year-old Clonmel man picked up his first point from a long right hand to win the first round 1-0 but Grananau pulled a point back with a right hand over the top at the start of the second and got inside for another to win the round 2-1. While Sheehan levelled it at 2-2 at the end of third he let it slip in the fourth.

“Con is 10 times a better boxer but he wasn’t driving home the shots,” Billy Walsh said. “He caught him with a couple of good shots in the last round but did not get any scores.

“It is career changing for him if he wins a medal — he would be on full time funding — so from that point of view it is even more disappointing.”

Ross Hickey bids to convert his bronze medal to silver when he meets Belarussian lightweight, Vazgen Safaryants, in this afternoon’s semi-finals. “He has a tricky opponent,” Walsh admitted. “He has medalled before at the European Championships and he has been to the Olympics.

“Having said that, Ross has a great chance. The guy is a southpaw as well so that makes it more interesting.”