McComb turns on the power to secure another Irish medal in Baku

Sean McComb secured Ireland a second European games medal with victory over Turkey’s Yashin Yilmaz yesterday.

McComb produced a solid dominating display to win on a unanimous 29-28 decision, securing a bronze medal and setting up a semi-final bout against Azerbaijan’s Albert Slimov on Friday.

“I stuck to my tactics that the coaches give me, they knew how the fight would have went if I stuck to my tactics,” admitted McComb, who started tentatively, taking control in the first round’s final minute.

“I started slowly, to be honest, I came back into it at the end of the first. I started landing some clean shots of my own and I just pushed it more in the second,” explained McComb.

“I’ve worked really for it, I’ve been focused the whole competition and thankfully its paid off.”

McComb will fight home favourite Albert Slimov for silver at 8am on Friday morning Irish time. The Azerbaijani boxers have enjoyed some fortunate decisions in these European Games but that doesn’t faze the Belfast man.

“It doesn’t matter who you’re fighting it’s up to those three judges who decides who wins, you could be seven foot tall for all I care,” explained McComb.

Adam Nolan and Dean Walsh where both defeated in their bronze medal matches, Walsh losing out convincingly 29-27 to German Sopa Kastriot, while Nolan lost on a split decision to Britain’s Josh Kelly.

Meanwhile Scott Evans made it two wins from two in his badminton qualifying group, defeating Yuhan Tan 14-21, 21-13, 21-13, with his final group game against Latvian Krausz today.

Chloe Magee regained touching distance in her badminton, challenge winning her second group 21-9, 21-7 over Austrian Kristine Sefre.

Magee faces Lianne Tan of Belgium in her final group game today, Tan Magee continued her mixed doubles 100% record with brother Sam, winning their second game of the competition against Lithuanian pair Bartusis and Fomkinaite.

Their final group game takes place today against Polish pair Cali and Sadowski.

Josh Magee and Sam Magee got back on track in the men’s doubles with victory over Portuguese pair Ricardo and Angelo Silva 15-6, 6-21. They face a must win game against Czech’s Florian and Kopriva today.

Rachel Darragh and Sara Boyle lost their ladies group game 19-21, 18-21 to Baumann and Fontaine of France and are all but out of Baku 2015.

Niamh Dwyer’s late heroics weren’t enough for the women’s 3x3 basketball team, who lost their opening group game to Slovenia 14-10. Two outside shots from Dwyer narrowed the gap to a single point with 32 seconds remaining before a rapid-fire response from the tournament’s sixth seeds pushed them through.

Ireland will play their remaining group games against Spain and Slovakia today before the knockout phase of the competition tomorrow.

“It’s an encouraging first game, but we’re disappointed,” said captain Suzanne Maguire. “We really wanted this one. I think towards the end of the game when we were getting things right, we knew we could have had them. But we didn’t do it right for long enough and 3x3 is not forgiving. You run out of time very quickly and we did today.”

Mona McSharry missed out on the women’s 50 metre breaststroke final, finishing eighth in the semi-final in 33.00 seconds having come through her heat in 32.87 seconds.

Emma Reid finished seventh in her 200 metre butterfly semi-final, missing out on the final, having qualified through the morning’s heat.

Otherwise there was no luck for the army of Irish swimmers present in Baku. These European games are a junior championship for swimmers, with no big names involved and Irish expectations low.

Benjamin Doyle, James Brown, Alan Corby, Rory McEvoy, Rachel Bethel, Niamh Kilgallen and Baguley all made first round exits in yesterday’s events. They will make further appearances over the week.