Dream come true for Barnes

PADDY BARNES bridged a 19-year gap in Irish boxing by claiming the gold medal in the light flyweight division, Kilkenny’s Darren O’Neill added silver from Saturday’s middleweight final and three other boxers chipped in with bronze to create Irish boxing history at the European championships in Moscow.

Barnes led a parade of Irish boxers on to the podium throughout an astonishing afternoon – only the host nation, Russia, bettered the medal haul – and, for the first time since 1991 when Paul Griffin won featherweight gold, Amhrán na bhFiann, was played at the European championships.

Fittingly it was Barnes, who famously declared bronze medals were only for losers after he was beaten 15-0 by the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world at the time, Shiming Zou, in Beijing, who claimed Ireland’s sixth gold medal at this level.