Egan and McCloskey two fights from Athens

KENNETH EGAN has joined Paul McCloskey in the semi-finals of their respective Olympic qualifying tournaments, just two fights away from qualification for Athens.

Yesterday the Dublin light heavyweight outpointed Babacar Kamara of Sweden by a decisive margin of 35-17 to claim his place in the quarter finals at Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

It was a welcome victory for High Performance Team Coach, Billy Walsh, a former Olympian, who had earlier watched the Cavan lightweight, Andrew Murray, lose to Alexey Vorobiev from Belarus on the wrong end of a 30-19 score.