Home are the heroes

Ireland’s Elite boxers, for the third time in the last three years, finished in second spot in rankings table behind powerhouses Russia at the European Championships.

At the 2010 and 2011 Europeans in Russia and Turkey, Ireland claimed second berth behind the table-topping eastern Europeans at the Ice Palace in Moscow and in Ankara. And on Saturday, Ireland once again finished behind the Russians at the Palace of Sports in Minsk, Belarus.

Russia, Ireland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Belarus, in that order, made up the top five. Ireland’s 10-man squad picked up 2.4 points per boxer — and two gold and silver medals.

John Joe Nevin and Jason Quigley secured gold and Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan took home silver. Nevin, who beat Ukrainian southpaw Mykola Butsenko in Saturday’s final, also scooped the Boxer of the Championships award 24 hours after celebrating his 24th birthday.

Donegal middleweight Quigley earned a split decision over Romania’s Bogdan Juratoni in his final. Barnes was due to meet Russia’s David Arypatan in the light-fly dust up but pulled out after breaking his nose.

Conlan lost to his nemesis, Welshman Andrew Selby. The Belfast switch-hitter gave it everything in a classic light-fly final, but Selby edged a split-decision.

Saturday’s gold medal win secured a unique hat-trick for Quigley as he finished top of the podium at the 2009 European Youth Championships in Poland and the inaugural European U23 Championships in Russia last year.

Nevin, Conlan and Barnes will now improve on their placings when the AIBA world rankings are updated to reflect their performance in Minsk next month.

Nevin will move into pole position and become the only Irish boxer besides Katie Taylor to be ranked number one in the world, while Quigley will earn an AIBA World rank — probably a top seven place — for the first time.

Gold medal winners at the Europeans collect 800 rankings points. Barnes and Conlan, who earned 600 points each from Minsk, will move into joint second and second place in their respective weight categories.

Team Ireland arrived home to a rapturous reception at Dublin Airport last night.

Tommy Murphy, IABA President, said the team had done their country proud, a view echoed by Team Manager Joe Hennigan and Dominic O’Rourke, IABA Director of Boxing Development.

Head coach Billy Walsh, who was working Ireland’s corner with Zuar Antia and Eddie Bolger in Minsk, said the team never ceases to amaze him.

“Every year we go out breaking records and making success. It’s a phenomenal team that are not happy with settling for second best,” he said.

“Obviously, our preparations is the key. Having that training camp in the Ukraine. I feel we’ll never be left in there again because we’ve beaten two of their favourites and they haven’t spoken to us since!

“It has been another memorable championships for us and our lads produced some great performances. We regrouped after last Monday after three had gone out and the guys responded magnificently.

“The European Championships is always one of the harder tournaments to medal at, but we took home two gold and two silver and had one top eight finish and our entire squad gave it everything. You can’t ask for any more than that.”

Ireland’s Elite male and female boxers have now won ten gold, three silver and eight bronze medals at European Championship level since the IABA set up their High Performance Unit in 2003.

Overall, Ireland have now won 52 medals at European level since Jimmy Ingle and Paddy Dowdall claimed double gold at the National Stadium in Dublin in 1939.