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.

Egan had beaten the Swede 9-6 in the final of the Gee Bee tournament in Helsinki last year but took no chances, scoring with clean shots to the head and body.

Meanwhile, back in Warsaw, High Performance Director, Gary Keegan, was critical of the judges after he watched Belfast featherweight, Martin Lindsey, getting stopped on the 20 point rule in the third round of his contest with Sedat Tasci of Turkey.

“I just could not believe what I was seeing,” he said. “After 10 seconds of the first round, Martin was five hits down. I mean, there was just one clinch and when they came out of it he was five points behind.

“At the end of the first round he was seven points down and then 11 at the end of the second. My reading of the bout was that he was probably three or four down at the end of the first and certainly not 11 at the end of the second.

“It is difficult to figure out just what they are at. We looked at the papers afterwards and the marking of the French judge would have been in keeping with how we viewed the contest. But then it all appeared to change and his scoring also just went haywire.”

He is hoping things will go well for Paul McCloskey in this evening’s quarter finals when he takes on Spiridiom Ionnidis of Greece. The one line of form here is drawn through a Norwegian beaten by the Greek the other day. McCloskey has three decisions over the same Norwegian ­ all pretty decisive.

But this is Olympic year and the Games are in Athens. The Greek will obviously want to be there. He is a stand-up boxer, willing to come forward, and will suit the Derry man.

“It is not easy out here,” Gary Keegan insisted. “The two toughest divisions here would appear to be at light welter- and middleweight and when I look at the middleweight division I am thankful that Andy Lee has qualified and does not have to go through all this again.

“If Paul goes through to the semi-finals then he will almost certainly meet Patrick Bogere of Sweden. He was the guy who beat Roy Sheahan at the multi-nations tournament in Cork last November and I would certainly fancy Paul’s chances against him, although I must say the Swede boxed exceptionally well against the Pole yesterday.”