‘Scratch’ won’t hinder confident David Oliver Joyce at Olympic qualifiers

Three-time EU champion David Oliver Joyce has dismissed concerns over a facial cut at the European Olympic qualifiers in Samsun, Turkey yesterday as “just a scratch”.

The Irish Elite champion advanced on a unanimous decision — 29-27 across the board — over Georgian lightweight Otar Eranosyan to join Katie Taylor, Ceire Smith, Christina Desmond, Brendan Irvine, and Darren O’Neill in today’s quarter-finals.

O’Neill forced Sweden’s Gabriel Richards into three standing counts in a first round TKO last night to set up a last-eight duel with Azeri No. 1 seed Abdulkadir Abdullayev, the current European Games heavyweight champion. But Michael O’Reilly, the No. 1 seed in the middleweight class in Samsun, will have to put his Olympic dreams on ice after a shoulder injury saw him crash out to Finland’s Ilari Kijala yesterday on a 30-27, 29-28, 29-28 decision.