Egan gets early warning for Cuban bout

CUBAN heavyweight Jose Larduet Gomez, issued a warning to Ireland’s Olympic silver medallist, Kenny Egan, when he stopped Lubos Valecky (Czech Republic) two minutes and 20 seconds into the first round of his preliminary bout at the World boxing championships in Baku yesterday.

Larduet was leading 14-2 when the referee stopped the contest and, on this performance, he will be fancied to improve on the bronze medal he won at light heavyweight at the world championships in Milan in 2009.

In 2008 he won a gold medal at the World youth championship in Mexico where Ireland’s Ray Moylette took gold in the lightweight division and he won his first Cuban senior title in 2009.

Kenny Egan watched yesterday’s session and he will be drawing from his vast reservoir of experience when they touch gloves next Monday.

This is Egan’s sixth world championships — his seventh if you include one at junior — and it is the only major tournament at which he has not medalled. He will have to win a medal in Baku because as it stands, he needs three wins to be certain of qualification.

Young Michael Conlon from the St. John Bosco club in Belfast will get the Irish campaign underway today when he takes on European bronze medallist, Alexandr Riscan (Moldova), in his flyweight prelim — a clash for a place among the last 16 — and he should know his opponent like the back of his hand having sparred him a number of times at the recent pre-championships training camp in Cologne.

Back in 2007, another Belfast man, Paddy Barnes became an unlikely qualifier for Beijing at the world championships in Chicago.

Now Head Coach, Billy Walsh, feels that Conlon, just 19, can follow in Barnes’ footsteps.

“He has been the outstanding newcomer this year,” he said.

“When he came into the programme there were no expectations — he was only a kid coming into the team for the first time — and he went out and won a couple of gold medals at big multi nations tournaments and he beat one of the big favourites, Khalid Yafai (England) 19-10 before losing to the eventual silver medallist, Vincenzo Picardi (Italy) 26-20 at this year’s European championships.

“On account of that there are expectations on him now — especially from himself — and we have had to try and contain that. But once he performs he is an exceptional young man.”

Conlon, himself, admitted that getting to the European championships was a real bonus for him. “But then I went a step further than I thought I would go,” he said.

“I beat the English guy who was a European youth champion and last year’s silver medallist 19-10 in my first fight. He was favourite to win the title this year.”

Paddy Barnes’ first opponent was also decided yesterday when Mark Anthony Barriga (Philippines) beat Stefan Caslarov (Romania) 12-5 in his first bout to set up next Monday’s last-32 clash with the Olympic bronze medallist.

If Barnes advances from Monday’s contest then he could renew rivalry with China’s Zou Shiming for a place at the London Olympics. Barnes had secured Olympic qualification when he lost 22-8 to Shiming in the quarter-finals at the world championships in Chicago in 2007. When they met in the semi-finals in Beijing Shiming won 15-0.

Shiming was not so impressive when he launched his campaign to reclaim the world championship title in Baku yesterday with a 17-9 win over Juan Medina (Santo Domingo).