Bell rings on box-off but medal winners call in sick

THIS may have been a box-off to select the team for the world championships and the first opportunity to qualify for next year’s Olympic Games but none of the recent medallists were in sight when the tournament got under way last night at the National Stadium.

Irish boxing’s two newly-crowned European champions, light welterweight Ray Moylette (St Anne’s, Westport) and light heavyweight sensation Joe Ward (Moate), were included on an injury list as long as your arm that also included Paddy Barnes, the Olympic bronze medallist and European and Commonwealth Games champion, Darren O’Neill (Paulstown), a European silver medallist last year, world bronze medallist John Joe Nevin (Cavan BC) and Willie McLaughlin (Ilies Golden Gloves).

Medical certs were handed in on their behalf to IABA secretary Sean Crowley at yesterday morning’s weigh-in — when 53 boxers went to the scales — and last night he reiterated his earlier comment that the officer board would be recommending the winners from this tournament are selected for the team to the central council meeting on Saturday week.

“Then they will select the team,” he said. “Nothing is ever written in stone here,” director of boxing Dominic O’Rourke said, but insisted that what the secretary stated earlier still stood.

High performance coach Billy Walsh, who was watching from the ringside, said the tournament had come too early for the injured boxers.

“But here I am six weeks out from the world championships and I don’t have a team,” he said. “There are just two qualification tournaments for next year’s Olympics and Baku is the first of them.

“Those guys have genuine injuries and we have been nursing them along. Paddy Barnes missed the European championships, Ray Moylette had to have injections in his hand before the championships and Willie McLaughlin injured his hand in the quarter-finals. Darren O’Neill has a long-term injury and John Joe Nevin had stitches in his wrist after a fall.”

O’Neill and McLaughlin, however, trained with him yesterday and so too, did Olympic silver medallist Kenneth Egan, who moves up to heavyweight for this tournament with three-time heavyweight champion Connie Sheehan (Clonmel) moving up to super heavyweight.

“Kenny was boxing at 85kg for the WSB [World Series Boxing] so he will be a fully fledged heavyweight next year. As well as that he beat the Olympic silver medallist at heavyweight at light heavyweight before he moved up. Connie is a big lad, 6ft 4ins, and he is very young so he was always going to move up,” he said.

Exactly three years to the day since his sensational victory over Gyula Kate of Hungary (9-5) for a place in the last 16 in Beijing, John Joe Joyce (St Michael’s, Athy) set out on the now familiar route to another Olympics when he out-pointed Commonwealth champion Paddy Gallagher (Gleann, Belfast) in the first contest of the night in Dublin.

He still savours the victory over Kate in Beijing where he was avenging a succession of previous defeats. The Mullingar man was unlucky to go out on a countback in his next bout against Felix Diaz (Dominican Republic) which was tied 11-11. Joyce bounced back to win a bronze medal in the European championships in Liverpool a couple of months later.

He dominated last night’s contest, which was fought at close range, with Gallagher trying to force him back. Joyce scored with some solid shots and it was not until the end of the first round that the Belfast man made an impression.

Joyce won the round 6-3 and, after trading punches in the centre of the ring for most of the second, he won it 6-2 and drew on his experience in the third to score with some big left hooks to the body for a comprehensive 18-9 victory.

“It wasn’t my best contest by any means but at least it’s out of the way and that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “At least they were scoring the shots tonight not like the national championships.

” I needed that contest and I will improve as the tournament goes on. I have a tough one tomorrow.”

He was referring to today’s quarter-final against his clubmate, Roy Sheahan, another former champion and a gold medallist at the European Union championships in Dublin in 2007. When they met in the championships last year Joyce won.

In tomorrow night’s semi-finals, Egan will meet Tommy McCarthy in a repeat of the 2009 and 2010 light-heavyweight finals which Egan won, while Connie Sheehan meets current super-heavyweight champion, Cathal McMonagle, on the same bill.

The quarter-finals take place today, commencing at 11am, with the semi-finals to be decided over two sessions tomorrow and the finals on Saturday from 3pm.

Results — Welterweight: John Joe Joyce (St Michael’s, Athy) beat Paddy Gallagher (Gleann, Belfast) 18-9; Karl Brabazon (St Saviours OBA) beat Martin Wall (Crumlin) 16-9; Paul Upton (Holy Family GG) beat Fergal Redmond (Arklow) 13-10; Michael O’Reilly (Portlaoise) beat Brian Brosnan (Crumlin) 13-8; Stephen Donnelly (All Saints, Belfast) beat Graham Hogan (Crumlin) 14-4.