Irish Olympians in action in Athens

Newly-qualified Irish 2008 Olympians, Ken Egan, Darren Sutherland and John Joe Joyce will be targeting treble gold today just 24 hours after securing their places at the 2008 Olympics at the second and final Olympic qualifier for European boxers in Athens, Greece on Friday afternoon.

The Irish trio qualified automatically for the Beijing Games courtesy of their semi final wins in the Greek capitol yesterday.

In total, Irish amateur boxing will be represented by Egan, Sutherland, Joyce, Paddy Barnes and John Joe Nevin at the 2008 Olympics.

Light flyweight Barnes, from the Holy Family club in Belfast, qualified for the 2008 Games at the 2007 World Championships at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

And Cavan bantamweight Nevin, at 18 the youngest of the five, booked his ticket for Beijing at the first Olympic qualifier for European boxers in Pescara, Italy last month.

Today's finals begin at 1.30pm Irish time.

22 Olympic places were distributed following yesterdays semi finals. The remaining three Olympics places will be decided at the conclusion of today's box-offs between the beaten bantamweight, welterweight and middleweight semi-finalists.