Baku Update: Guaranteed medals in badminton and boxing

There will be two more boxing finals with Irish involvement at the European Games in Baku, guaranteeing at least two more silver medals.

Katie Taylor scored a countback victory over Yana Alekseevna of Azerbaijan in her lightweight semi-final, while Michael O’Reilly was granted a walkover by Maxim Koptyakov of Russia, who withdrew from his semi-final after picking up an injury.

All three judges scored Taylor’s fight as a 38-all tie, with the Olympic champion behind by one round on two judges' cards going into the final round.

A tight encounter saw the split decision go Taylor's way, and she will fight for gold against Estelle Mossely in tomorrow's final at 2pm Irish time.

O’Reilly was given the day off following Koptyakov’s injury ahead of their middleweight semi-final.

The Portlaoise fighter now meets Xaybula Musalov of Azerbaijan in tomorrow’s final at 3:15 Irish time.

Sean McComb claimed a bronze to add to Brendan Irvine’s silver after losing to top-ranked Azeri Albert Selimov in the men's lightweight semis on a unanimous points decision.

Belfast fighter McComb had gone in strongly, but all three judges awarded Selimov the opening round.

When the 22-year-old Irishman suffered a cut to the side of his right eye, problems began to mount, and not even the awarding of the third round to McComb by two of the judges could prevent a 3-0 points decision.

Selimov was awarded the victory 29-28 30-27 29-28.

As well as four boxing medals, two badminton medals have been secured as Chloe and Sam Magee qualified for the mixed doubles semi-finals and a guaranteed bronze at least.

The Magee siblings dispatched Pawel Pietryja and Aneta Wojtkowska 21-18 21-12 in 32 minutes.

Sam and Josh Magee are aiming for a spot in the men’s doubles final when they face Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov of Russia at 3pm, already having clinched at least a bronze medal.

But men’s singles favourite Scott Evans is out after being beaten in his quarter-final 21-17 21-14 by Denmark’s Emil Holst.

Eoin Fleming is out of the men’s judo having lost in the first round to Hasan Vanlioglu of Turkey.

Ben Doyle won his heat of the 100 butterfly in the pool this morning, but was disqualified as none of the Irish progressed.

Danielle Hill was the highest placed Irish swimmer this morning as she finished 21st overall in the 100m Backstroke, she missed out on a place in the semi-final by just .6 of a second. Hill was over a second off her Irish junior record time of 1:03.72 touching in 1:05.49. Issie Hayes was also off her best time in the event touching in 1:06.18.

Rory McEvoy was also six tenths of a second off a semi-final place in the heats of the 50m Backstroke, he swam a time of 27.34 seconds while Alan Corby (27.43) also competed.

James Brown swam a personal best time in the heats of the 100m Butterfly clocking 56.33 seconds, Brown was the fastest of three Irish swimmers placing 32nd overall. Alan Corby was fifth in his heat in 57.91 seconds and Doyle was disqualified having touched first in his heat.

In the men’s 100m Breaststroke Andrew Moore swam a lifetime best 1:07.51 while in the women’s event Mona McSharry (1:13.20) and Niamh Kilgallen (1:14.03) could not match their best times placing 22nd and 26th.

Hill, Hayes (27.69), McSharry (27.59) and Rachel Bethel (27.51) all competed in the heats of the 50m Freestyle with Hill the best of the Irish in 27.25 seconds.