Road to London starts for determined O’Neill

DARREN O’NEILL has dreamed about boxing in the Olympics for a long time and his dream turned to frustration in 2008 when he watched Kenneth Egan being awarded his silver medal at the Beijing Olympics.

“I had beaten three of the four boxers on the podium that day,” he recalled. “The only one I had not beaten was Kenny. It probably made me more determined.”

For the Irish boxers, Olympic qualification begins this weekend when the preliminary rounds of the Elite national senior championships will be decided tomorrow and Saturday.