Determined Egan on Moscow revenge mission

KENNETH EGAN faces one of the most difficult assignments of his career today, as he bids to exact revenge on Abdelkader Bouhenia.

Last year at the world championships in Milan, the Olympic silver medallist was coming off a traumatic period in his personal life when he went out of the tournament at the hands of the Frenchman.

That defeat had a profound effect on Egan, and he said yesterday that he wants to exact revenge on the Frenchman.

“I never really seemed to be able to get going against him in Milan,” he recalled.

“But I’ve been in with him a few times in training camps since and I reckon I have a good chance of reversing that decision – in fact that’s what I intend to do.”

Ireland’s five semi-finalists are bidding to cash in their bronze medals for silver at the European boxing championships in Moscow, where Egan has established himself as one of the red hot favourites for a gold medal.

Regardless of what happens in today’s semi-finals and tomorrow’s finals, this team has already made history with the biggest ever collection of medals at European, or indeed, any level.

Athy lightweight Eric Donovan, also faces a huge assignment today when he meets Russia’s Albert Selimov, who won the gold medal at featherweight at the world championships in Chicago in 2007.

Selimov beat Donovan 6-0 when they touched gloves in a multi-nations tournament.

“That result did not do me any justice,” Donovan insisted. “I boxed way better and there were scores that I should have got that were not registered.”

Belfast light-flyweight Paddy Barnes, who has had but a handful of contests since he won his bronze medal in Beijing and is just coming off surgery on a hernia, faces an interesting opponent in Jose Kelvin de la Nieve.

Born in the Dominican Republic, the 24-year-old became a Spanish citizen some 10 years ago and won silver medals at both the European Union Championships in the National Stadium in Dublin three years ago and the European Championships in Liverpool in 2008.

But the find of the week has been Tyrone McCullagh, a 19-year-old southpaw from the Illies/Golden Gloves club in Donegal who won his first national senior title last March.

After a very impressive 13-2 victory over Piotr Apostol (Moldova) on Monday he had a somewhat controversial clash with the Armenian, Azat Hovhannisivan, on Tuesday.

After McCullagh won that contest 6-3 the Armenian threw his headgear at the judges and kicked practically everything in sight and the Armenians subsequently objected to the referee and the judges.

That was over-ruled, and McCullagh will now meet Iain Weaver, a 20-year-old from Dorset, in today’s featherweight semi-finals.

Darren O’Neill was involved in what is regarded as the best contest of the championships to date when he outpointed Sergey Derevyanchenko (Ukraine) 7-6 on Tuesday.

O’Neill, who has arrived in the semi-finals on the most difficult side of the draw, took everything he could throw at him and he might just have put all his problem opponents behind him as he goes in against the Bulgarian, Mladen Manev.